The Union Minister of State for Power K.C. Venugopal has said that the work of the Mysore-Kozhikode transmission line will start soon as the project got the final environment clearance from the Union Ministry of Forest and Environment.
Addressing a press conference here on Monday the Minister said that this line will help to bring power allotted from Central pool to Kerala and solve the voltage problem in Malabar area.
He said that the in the next five years 75000 MW additional power will be generated in the country to meet the growing energy requirement. The major share of this power will be produced from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
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Since Kerala is not in a position to take up new hydel projects due to environmental problems more allotment of power from the Centre is required to meet its requirements. Thus the State was allotted 500 MW of power from Central pool. So to bring power from Central pool, power corridors will be constructed in the State, he said.
After making a review of the progress of the construction of 400 KV substation at Elappully near Palakkad, the Minister said that the Rs.170 crore substation will be commissioned in the third week of March, 2012.
The substation has cost Rs.110 crore and its power line Rs.60 crore. The commissioning will partially solve the voltage problem and the help to provide good quality of uninterrupted power to industries in Kanjikode-Pudussery-Walayar
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He said that 80 per cent of the power in the State is generated in the southern districts. But the northern districts required daily 1200 MV of power. When the power is brought from south to north there is huge transmission loss.
He said that the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vaidyutheekaran Yojana to provide free power connection to BPL families was not properly implemented in Kerala though the Central government had allotted funds.
He said that a special package to provide electricity to the tribal hamlets of Attappady and Nelliampathy will be taken up under this project in Palakkad district. Kerala State Electricity Board was directed to prepare the scheme.
The inaccessible tribal colonies in the forest areas will be provided electricity from non-convention energy source. He said that to solve power distribution problems in Kerala schemes worth Rs.1170 crore is under various stages of implementation. In 43 towns of the State the first part of Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme is under implementation.
Palakkad Municipality was allotted an amount of Rs.55 crore; Ottapalam Municipality Rs.3.27 crore; Chittur Municipality Rs.8 crore and Shoranur Municipality Rs.4.76 crore under this scheme.
The Minister said the coal mine allotted to Kerala in Orissa will be utilised to implement a joint venture power project to produce 2000 MW. The talks are going on with Orissa government for the implementation of this mega project, he said.