PATNA: Chief minister Nitish Kumar hopes the Centre would provide coal linkage to state-owned Barauni thermal power station, which was undergoing renovation and expansion.
The CM had led an all-party delegation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on April 6 demanding coal linkage to Barauni and releasing 50% power generated at Barh phase-I and Kahalgaon phase-II plants of the NTPC to Bihar.
He said the Barauni power plant should have got coal linkage automatically since it was an existing plant. The state government was in the process of setting up two power generating units of 250MW each with its own resources and coal linkage for these units was required urgently, he said.
"No power plant has been set up in Bihar in the last 15 years and the state is extremely backward on power front. The per capita power consumption in the state is 122 units, against the national average of 778 units," CM said.
Referring to the Centre's announcement to give 50% share to the home state in power to be generated from the 14 upcoming NTPC plants across the country, CM said, "We have demanded extension of this policy to Barh and Kahalgaon power plants of the NTPC." Bihar has been allotted 15% power from Barh and 6% from Kahalgaon. The CM said Union power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde, in a letter addressed to him, assured 100MW of power from Damodar Valley Corporation.
Talking to the socio-economic and caste survey, the CM said the state government had already expressed its apprehension about the survey which would identify the BPL families. "There should be an independent commission for identifying BPL families as any state or Central agency conducting survey and preparing BPL list will create controversies," he said.
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