Chattisgarh power to Telangana for 15 years

Raipur : It's official now. Chhattisgarh will sell 1000 MW power to Telangana for 15 years. In this connection, a power purchase agreement (PPA) between the two States was signed by officials of the two States in presence of Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh and his Telangana counterpart K Chandrashekar Rao on Monday.

Chhattisgarh will provide power to Telangana from Marwa Thermal Power Project. On the occasion, Singh assured Rao to provide Telangana an additional 1000 MW power in future.

The agreement has been signed by Chhattisgarh's principal secretary energy Aman Singh and his Telangana counterpart SK Joshi at a VIP road-based hotel in the presence Telangana finance minister E Rajendar, government representative in Delhi S Venugopala Chari, TS Genco CMD D Prabhakar Rao, CMO's principal secretary P Narasing Rao, Chhattisgarh transport minister Rajesh Munath and agriculture minister Brij Mohan. Soon both States would enter into power purchase agreement after the TS Electricity Regulatory Commission determines the price.

Power Grid Corporation of India Limited is making arrangements for supplying power from Chhattisgarh to Telangana through a power corridor, the tenders' process would be completed in a month and PGCIL is exploring possibilities to transmit power via Maharastra till the completion of dedicated line.

Singh said it was a proud moment for Chhattisgarh. 'Both Chhattisgarh and Telangana are new states. Rao talked to me about the problems his government was facing due to power shortage in Telangana immediately after the state's formation. We are happy to enter into this deal,' he added.

Pointing that currently a makeshift arrangement had been done for power transmission, Singh said he had written a letter to union minister of state (independent charge) for power Piyush Goyal pertaining to laying of new line to for smooth supply electricity from Chhattisgarh to Telagana.

Congratulating people of Telangana for finally having their own state after long struggle Singh said Chhattisgarh was ready to extend help to the newly-formed State in all other sectors apart from power.

'Though, every new state faces challenges at initial stage, I am confident that Rao will cope with all the emerging problems efficiently,' he added.

Singh told that Marwa project would expectedly start generation by March 2015. Looking elated by the deal, Rao said he was more than pleased that Singh accepted his request of selling power to Telangana and eventually the deal happened on Monday.

Commemorating former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee he said Chhattisgarh was the precious gift to the people of tribal-populated region 14 years back and everything happened peacefully, but Telangana came to existence after hard struggle of the people and too many sacrifices.

It took 14 years to convince country's political system that our demand was genuine. We saw an easy ride only when ruling Congress at Centre and opposition BJP concurred with us,' he added.

Praising all-round development in Chhattisgarh, he said it was undoubtedly on top in terms of growth among the three states that were formed 14 years back.

He said some anti-Telangana people were engaged in negative publicity about the newly-formed State, but inspired by Chhattisgarh's development model, his government was convincing people that it would adopt similar roadmap of growth.

When asked besides power, what were the other sectors in which he would seek help from Chhattisgarh, Rao said there were immense possibility in other sectors too as both the states were geographical neighbours. However, he said, his next agenda would be to establish mutual relation between the two states on irrigation for which he would soon revisit Raipur in future.

He said efforts would be made to commence long overdue Inchampalli irrigation project proposed to be built at downstream where river Indrawati merges with river Godavari.

On transmission corridors he said two were on board ' one, from Wardha to Dichpally for which his government had already provided 60 acre land and the transmission line might be laid in next 18 months and two, Angul-Palasa (Andhra Pradesh) transmission line that too would complete in 6-8 months.