The power-starved southern region, including Karnataka, can hope for import of surplus power in the near future as the Centre is planning to increase the transmission capacity by about 2,000 MW.
Announcing this after a review of the power scenario here, Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal said efforts were also on to increase the transmission capacity of the southern region by another 6,000 MW by 2018-19. Bids will be invited this year for taking up works related to setting up transmission lines.
Though different regions of the country had surplus power, it was not possible to transmit the surplus to regions suffering from shortage due to lack of adequate transmission capacity, he pointed out, while stressing the importance of increasing the transmission capacity.
Thermal help
On the power crisis in Karnataka due to poor hydel storage, the Union Minister said the Centre was willing to provide additional coal supply to the State’s thermal power plants if they were ready to increase their generation.
“This is what we can do as a short-term measure to tide over power crisis,” he said, while assuring the State of examining its request for providing additional power from the Central quota.
Replying to a query on delay in coal allocation to Karnataka’s proposed pit-head thermal power plant in Chhattisgarh, Mr. Goyal said the issue would be taken up during the next round of allocation of coal to different power projects.
He also announced that the Centre would provide a financial assistance of Rs. 800 crore to Karnataka to separate its agricultural power network from the non-agricultural one.
In all, the State would get a Central support of about Rs. 1,700 crore to improve power infrastructure as part of the plan to make it ready to implement the national policy of providing uninterrupted and round-the-clock power by 2019, he said.
The cost of power had decreased nearly by 50 per cent in the national power exchange, Mr. Goyal maintained.
