The Opposition Congress, which launched a poll advertisement campaign highlighting the power shortage that has triggered load-shedding in the State, has found itself in a tricky situation. The Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday turned the tables on the Congress by squarely blaming the failure by the UPA government at the Centre to provide coal linkage to the State’s new power projects, including the pit-head thermal project in Chhattisgarh, for the serious power shortage.
“Karnataka signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chhattisgarh government to set up a thermal power project near the coal mine there in 2008. Work on the first phase of this project comprising two generating units with a capacity of 800 MW each was supposed to have begun in 2009 and was to have been completed by March/April this year. But the UPA’s failure to provide coal linkage to this project that not only minimises environmental pollution but also saves a huge amount of money that would have been otherwise spent on transportation of coal, has put the project in limbo,” BJP State president Pralhad Joshi told reporters here on Thursday.
