Hyderabad, August 31: Hard-pressed to make power available at the required level to meet the varied requirements of the 2.11 crore consumers, including 28 lakh farmers free of cost, the Andhra Pradesh government is on a fast-track route to have both Hinduja and BPL power projects completed at the earliest.
After giving the necessary clearances to the projects, it has now set November and December as the deadlines for the Hindujas and BPL, respectively, to achieve financial closures and 2012 to commence generation after a 30-month period.
The Hinduja project was cleared by the BJP-led NDA government as a “fast track” project but the company failed to achieve financial closure even after a large extent of land was allotted to it near Visakhapatnam.
The management approached Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy to revive the project amid charges that it sought to use the land for booming real estate business in Visakhapatnam and that the land belonged to a mosque.
A. K . Goel, Principal Secretary, Energy, told The Hindu here on Saturday that the Hindujas had been asked to pay market value for the land whereas the company had agreed to make its own arrangements to get coal linkage from Talcher coalfields in Orissa.
Merchandise plant
Although the Rs. 2,800-crore project has been planned as a merchandise plant, the company has finally agreed to spare 25 per cent of its power exclusively for Andhra Pradesh at a price decided by A.P. Electricity Regulatory Commission, which, however, will be equal to that collected by NTPC’s Simhadri project located at the same place.
The State, however, may have to pay a higher sum if it wants to purchase the rest of the 75 per cent power at market rate.
–Agencie