Jaipur, April 25: Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and Union Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh are at loggerheads over the issue of environmental clearance to the State’s 14 power plant projects pending with the Union Ministry over the past two years.
Other than shooting off several letters to Ramesh during the past one year, Gehlot has at least on four occasions publicly criticised Ramesh for not promptly clearing the projects, which he said had affected the State Government’s plan to become self-sufficient in power by 2013.
According to official sources, Gehlot even took the opportunity to take up the matter with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his recent visit to Delhi. The matter had also come up during the meeting between Gehlot and Ramesh some two weeks ago in Jaipur.
Soon after coming to power, Gehlot had in early 2009 announced 14 power plants, including three Super Critical Thermal power plants at Chhabra, Banswara and Suratgarh, with a total installed capacity of 11,590 MW. It immediately sent the details of the power plants to the Environment Ministry, with hopes to have clearance at the earliest.
In the 2010 State Budget it allocated a little over Rs 10,000 crore for these projects .
According to officials sources, pending central clearance only about Rs 150 crore of the total allocation could be spent during the year.
Sources said that, though the Union Coal Ministry had already allocated two coal blocks in Chhattisgarh for these thermal power plants, the coal could not be taken out because of non-clearance from the Environment Ministry.
Last December, on the completion of two years of his Government Gehlot at a public function came down heavily on Ramesh and said it was unfortunate that even after the State had completed all the formalities, Ramesh had no time to look into the proposals.
——–Agencies