A possible showdown between power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and environment and forest minister Jairam Ramesh was averted on Thursday with prime minister Manmohan Singh canceling a scheduled meeting on power projects held up for environmental clearances.
Apart from other Union ministers, Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Dorjee Khandu had been invited for the crucial meeting since he had complained to PM that the environment ministry was sitting on nearly 85 small and medium hydel power projects in his state.
Ramesh’s ministry is also sitting on 39 other thermal and hydel power projects, derailing Shinde’s plan of achieving power generation targets.
Highly-placed sources in the government said the meeting was cancelled since PM was preoccupied due to the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony. All issues will now be discussed at the state power ministers’ conference on October 26-27.
It has also been decided that a group of ministers headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee will meet on October 28 to review the situation as desired by PM.
A number of states capable of generating hydel power and providing it to consumers at extremely low rates have expressed serious concern that the anti-hydel lobby in the country has become active again. It was pointed out that the cost of power generated at the Bhakra hydel power project was a mere 19 paise per unit. Even the operating cost of a hydel power project is less than Re1 compared to Rs4.50 of thermal plants.
The Arunachal chief minister not only protested the holding up of projects but alleged that Ramesh had been trying to pit one state against the other by raising issues that did not exist before. Chief ministers of other hill states, including Himachal Pradesh and Uttaranchal, Chhattisgarh and Orissa have also expressed concern.
The holding up of large private sector power projects promoted by GMR Energy escalated the situation. Ramesh also tried to hold up a project by the Jindals in Chhattisgarh on a technical ground, which was later found to be unsustainable. Finally, the project was cleared.
What has baffled the chief ministers and Shinde is that even after various clearances, foreign investment and arrival of equipment, projects are held up at the last minute on technical grounds.
A senior official in PM’s office said Manmohan was worried over inter ministerial and Centre-state issues and the matter would be sorted out soon.
