Members of the district unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) staged a dharna here on Tuesday against the “step-motherly” treatment of the Union government in resolving the power crisis in the State.
K. Raghupati Bhat, MLA, said on Tuesday that the State was experiencing a severe shortage of power.
It was owing to the fall in supply of coal from the Centre to the thermal power stations in the State.
Load-shedding
Besides, the Centre had also reduced supply of power to the State from the Central Power Grid, further worsening the situation. All this had forced the State government to resort to load-shedding and power holidays to industries in Bangalore, the MLA said.
Coal for thermal plants in the State was being supplied from Nagpur, Talmera and Singreni.
But in the past six months, coal supplied from Talmera had gone down from 10 lakh tonnes to 5 lakh tonnes, Mr. Bhat said.
Nearly 14.5 lakh tonnes should have been supplied from April to September from Singareni.
But only 8.5 lakh tonnes had been supplied. The Telangana issue in Andhra Pradesh had affected coal supply to the State, he said.
Though the Union government should have provided 1,534 MW of power from the Central Grid, it was supplying 950 to 1000 MW of power to the State.
The State government had reached an agreement with the government of Chhattisgarh for supply of 200 MW of power.
But this could be supplied only through a power corridor. But the Centre was giving priority to Andhra Pradesh.
Hence, the State was getting only 16 MW of power, Mr. Bhat said.
Delay tactics
Soon after the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power, it took steps to generate 7,000 MW of power through new projects. But the delaying tactics by the Union government in giving technical sanction and providing coal had affected these projects, Mr. Bhat said.
BJP leaders Udaykumar Shetty, Ravi Amin, Kiran Kumar, S.P. Kudva, T.V. Hegde, Mattar Ratnakar Hegde, and Bharati Chandrashekhar participated in the protest.
In Mangalore
The Dakshina Kannada unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party staged a protest in Mangalore against the policies of the United Progressive Alliance government headed by the Congress.
Vice-president of the State BJP minority wing Franklin Monteiro said that it was not right on the part of the Ullal MLA to ask Power Minister Shobha Karandlaje to quit over the power crisis in the State as it was the Centre that was being unfair.
It was the Union Energy Minister who should resign, he said.
The Centre was trying to de-stabilise the State government, he alleged.
Party leaders Prathap Simha Nayak and Nalin Kumar Kateel, MP, were present.
