THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Power Minister Aryadan Mohammed said that the cabinet will decide on levying the proposed power surcharge of 25 paise per unit. He told a news conference here on Thursday that the proposal was still pending before the Finance Department. Asked whether it would be effected from October 1, he said if the government decides to levy it then it will be effected from October 1.The Minister said that Kerala that would have to cope with severe power crisis in the coming years. “While our neighbours like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka had set a target of generating 5000 to 10,000 MW of power by 2020 anticipating the huge power requirements, Kerala had ongoing power projects only to generate 189 MW,’’ he said.He said that currently Kerala had power requirement for 3300 MW. However, Kerala’s total power generation capacity now stands at 1800 MW. Of this, only 994 MW of power was being produced in the state. He said that Kerala would require at least 6000 MW of power.On the question of Athirappally project, he said if a consensus can be worked out in the state the government was confident of getting Central approval. He said that it was not the Union Forest Minister who torpedoed the project. Aryadan said he did not totally reject the contentions of the Greens on the project. “Our efforts should be to minimise the damage”, he said.Referring to the discussions with NTPC on the Cheemeni project in Kasargod district, he said that the government had proposed to provide 5 percent of revenue share to the tribals while others would be given sufficient compensation for the land being acquired.On the Attappadi issue , he said the tribals land will not be allowed to encroach upon. He said V D Satheesan MLA’s demand that land encroachers at Attappadi should be booked under Atrocities (Prevention ) Act, was correct. Revenue Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan had also been sincere in securing the tribals land here, Aryadan said.The minister said under the 100 days action programme of the government, 11 substations including four 110 KV sub-stations, eight 33 KV sub-stations were opened. The government had laid 1204 km of 11 KV lines and installed 1850 transformers, he said.During the same period, 1948 km of single phase lines were converted to three phase lines and 99506 damaged meters were replaced with new ones. The government also could provide new electricity connections to 104894 consumers. E-payment facility was made available for HT and EHT consumers.
Comments
0 comment