Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal on Tuesday called on union coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal, seeking dedicated coal linkage for the upcoming thermal plants at Goindwal Sahib, Rajpura and Talwandi Sabo.
The CM told Jaiswal that GVK Power Limited was constructing a thermal power plant at Goindwal Sahib, the first unit of which was likely to be made operational by May 2013. The project has been allotted the Tokisud coal block (Jharkhand), but there has been a delay as part of the block area is under forest land.
Badal informed the union minister that he had called up his Jharkhand counterpart Arjun Munda for getting the transfer of land expedited. In the light of these circumstances, coal supply from the block was likely to be delayed further, so the CM requested Jaiswal to direct the ministry of coal to provide temporary allocation of 1.4 million tonnes of coal for one year to the project from the mines of Coal India Limited from February 2013 to January 2014.
Raising the issue of enhancing the sanctioned coal linkage as per revised requirements - from 1,200 MW to 1,400 MW for the Rajpura thermal plant, and from 1,800 MW to 1,980 MW for the Talwandi Sabo plant Badal sought Jaiswal's intervention to resolve this issue, otherwise commissioning and power generation of both plants would be adversely affected. Responding to the issues raised by Badal, the union minister assured him of a positive outcome.
{{/usCountry}}Raising the issue of enhancing the sanctioned coal linkage as per revised requirements - from 1,200 MW to 1,400 MW for the Rajpura thermal plant, and from 1,800 MW to 1,980 MW for the Talwandi Sabo plant Badal sought Jaiswal's intervention to resolve this issue, otherwise commissioning and power generation of both plants would be adversely affected. Responding to the issues raised by Badal, the union minister assured him of a positive outcome.
{{/usCountry}}Earlier, the chief minister also met the union minister of state for power Jyotiraditya M Scindia to update him about the status of three thermal power plants coming up in Punjab. Badal also informed Scindia that the state was committed to completing all these ongoing power projects within the time frame so that these could be commissioned for generation, but the only difficulty being faced by the state government was in the allocation of coal blocks.