The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Power crisis: Revanna demands apology from BJP Government

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Saturday, Nov 22, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Power crisis: Revanna demands apology from BJP Government

Special Correspondent

‘BJP has no time to focus on power sector’
Special legislature session to discuss power crisis sought

BANGALORE: The Former Energy Minister H. D. Revanna on Friday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party Government of failing to efficiently manage the power supply situation in the State and demanded that it should tender a public apology for its failure.

“The power supply situation is chaotic in the State. People, especially farmers, are suffering due to the inefficiency of the BJP Government”, Mr. Revanna alleged at a press conference here.

He did not agree with the BJP’s claims that lesser storage in the hydel reservoirs was the main reason for the power crisis.

The power supply had never been this bad even during the regime of S.M. Krishna Government when the State faced serious drought for three consecutive years leading to depletion of hydel resources, Mr. Revanna said.

He alleged that the BJP Government did not have time to focus on power sector as it was too busy chalking out strategies for the coming Lok Sabha elections. He took serious exception to Energy Minister K.S. Eshwarappa repeatedly blaming the previous governments for the present problems in power supply situation.

Mr. Revanna demanded that the BJP Government bring out a White Paper on the contribution of previous governments as well as the BJP Government to the power sector.

This would help people compare the performances of various governments.Mr. Revanna suggested that the Government convene a special legislature session to discuss the power crisis and to decide the steps to be taken to rescue the State. During the session, the Government should take the Opposition parties into confidence with respect to the efforts to bail out the State from power crisis, he said.

Mr. Revanna, who released several documents to prove his contribution to power sector, said he had drawn a road map titled “Vision 2020” to transform the State’s power sector, including increasing the power generation capacity to 23,610 MW by 2020.

He claimed that even the signing of MoU with Chhattisgarh for setting up a pit-head power plant in that State was not the idea of the BJP Government as such a concept had been mooted when he was Energy Minister.

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