Chattisgarh promises power to Karnataka

Chattisgarh has decided to spare 100 MW of electricity to Karnataka in a bid to help the state tide over the power crisis arising in the wake of failure of monsoon.

With the power situation in the state worsening with each passing day, Karnataka’s Power Minister K S Eshwarappa called on Chattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, who is undergoing naturopathy treatment at a private hospital on the outskirts of Bangalore on Friday and requested him to supply 500 MW of power.

Singh, who responded positively to Karnataka’s request, immediately called up his officials in Chattisgarh to verify the power situation in his State.

Although Chattisgarh was also facing a power shortage, Singh assured Karnataka that his state had about 100 MW of surplus power during some hours of the day and the same could be supplied to Karnataka.

Singh told reporters that he had instructed officials in Chattisgarh to make arrangements to supply 100 MW of power to Karnataka in the next two to three days.

Eshwarappa said the storage of water in the hydel reservoirs of the state will be barely enough to produce electricity for a maximum of 23 days in view of the scanty rainfall in the state. “Hence, we had to approach Chattisgargh to bail us out of the grim scenario”, he said.

The woefully inadequate availability of power in the State has also forced the Government to resort to scheduled load-shedding from July 21.

Eshwarappa told reporters that the Cabinet Sub Committee set up to monitor availability and supply of power would meet on Monday to decide the schedule for load-shedding across the entire state.

Eshwarappa said a delegation of Ministers from Karnataka would also travel to New Delhi shortly and meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Federal Minister for Power Sushil Kumar Shinde to press for immediate allocation of 3,000 MW of power to the state from the Central Grid and help tide over the grim power scenario.
He took serious exception to the Federal Government’s decision to allocate 100 MW out of the 150 MW of unallocated share of Karnataka to neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, knowing fully well that Karnataka was also reeling under acute power scarcity.