Hyderabad:
Telangana,which faces a severe shortage of electricity, has signed an agreement with the neighbouring state of Chattisgarh to supply 1,000MW of power. The deal was signed by the chief ministers of the two states in Raipur on Monday.
Chief Minister of Telangana K Chandrasekhar Rao and was Chattisgarh’s Chief Minister Raman Singh had two rounds of talks before the finalisation of the agreement. Rao, who faces a lot of pressure from his constituents due to erratic electricity supply, had gone to Chattisgarh on Sunday for consultations with his counterpart on improving the electricity supply in the newly-carved out state from Andhra Pradesh in south India.
Raman Singh, who belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), also invited senior BJP leader from Telangana, Bandaru Dattatreya, to be present during the talks.
KCR, who after signing the agreement felicitated Raman Singh and his cabinet colleagues, said the relations between Chattisgarh and Telangana regions were centuries old as they share a common culture.
“Chattisgarh is still repleted with the heritage of our Kakatiya dynasty”, he said. KCR recalled that in the past he raised the problems and issues of Chattisgarh in New Delhi.
Though some infrastructure for transmission of electricity from Chattisgarh to Telangana exists, new transmission lines will be required and the Telangana government has indicated that it will prefer to bring this power via Maharashtra as those lines were better.
The 1,000MW power was likely to bring a big relief to the government and people of Telangana, especially the farmers who were in distress due to the failure of monsoon and power crisis has made it difficult for the government to provide 7-hour free supply to the farmers.
Opposition parties were also going for the jugular of the government on the issue of farmers’ sufferings as they allege that the power crisis has forced more than 250 farmers of Telangana to commit suicide over the last five months.
Within hours of Chattisgarh agreeing to sell power to Telangana, Union Minister for Water Resources Uma Bharati also granted her nod to continuing to power generation at Srisailam hydel project.
Telangana major irrigation minister T Harish Rao, after meeting Uma Bharati in New Delhi today, told the media that in view of the sufferings of farmers, Telangana government can continue to generate power at Srisailam project.
On the earlier order of the Krishna River Water Management Board Telangana government had stopped the power generation midnight last night.
On this point Uma Bharati clarified that the order was not that of the Board. She assured that the Center will do every thing possible to protect the farmers.
Harish Rao also drew her attention to the violations by Andhra Pradesh government in utilisation of river Krishna waters. He said without any allocation, water was being drawn for Hundri Neeva project by AP.
