HARYANA POWER MINISTER seeks support from Centre

Jalandhar, February 5, 2013: Capt. Ajay Singh Yadav, Power Minister, Haryana  participated in the Sixth Annual Conference of Power Ministers of States and UTs organised by the Union Ministry of Power, to deliberate the critical issues concerning power sector on Tuesday at New Delhi.

After giving brief of the achievements made by the Haryana Power Utilities, Power Minister, Haryana raised certain critical issues concerning power sector for seeking support from the Centre and has a hope that these issues will be suitably addressed.

He said there is a strong need to introduce a system of payments to the coal companies based on the quality of coal tested at the receiving end to address Financial Loss to the Power Generation Utilities.

The Government of India needs to take urgent steps to make necessary changes in the relevant policy guidelines to make available sufficient quantity of coal for the power plants situated in the State of Haryana. Activities relating to setting up of 660 MW Unit-3 of thermal power plant at Yamunanagar are held up due to want of coal allocation for the project.

He said Ministry of Power, Govt. of India has recommended allocation of only 2.8 mmscmd of gas for one 750MW unit for the proposed 1500 MW Gas Based combined Cycle Power Plant in district Faridabad as against the requirement of 7.5 mmscmd which needs to be increased. The Government of India needs to take urgent steps to address this major issue as lack of power will affect all other sectors of the economy.

He said Ministry of Coal had allocated Mara-II-Mahan Coal Block, having coal reserves of about 950 million tonnes, jointly to HPGCL and Govt. of Delhi in August 2006. No progress could be made regarding development of the block as Forest clearance was not granted by Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF). Power Minister, Haryana requested MOEF to grant Forest Clearance for expeditious development of the Mara-II-Mahan Coal Block.

Further, he said the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) has approved for creation of Power System Development Fund (PSDF) and about Rs. 4,000 Crore has accumulated in the fund since creation. The fund is managed by Managing Committee of Northern Regional Power Committee (NRPC). The funds lying in the PSDF managed by NRPC is proposed to be utilized for Power System improvement and strengthening works required to be executed in all States. However, NRPC has not been able to draw any amount from this fund till date. The bottlenecks in this respect are required to be looked into and addressed at the earliest so that timely and proper utilization of this fund could be made.

He said as per the Rajiv Gandhi Gramin Vidyutikaran Yojna, an un-electrified Habitation having a maximum population of 100 people are to be given electric connectivity. The above condition of 100 inhabitants needs to be reduced to 25 if we have to achieve the goal of ‘power to all’.

At the end Power Minister, Haryana thanked the Union Ministry of Power, for giving him the opportunity to attend this conference and be a part of this august gathering and also for giving him an opportunity to express his views.