The Hindu Business Line : Kerala seeks PM's intervention for Athirapilly project

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Thiruvananthapuram Feb 25 The Kerala Government has sought the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh's intervention for clearance to the Athirapilly hydel project.

The Electricity Minister, Mr A.K. Balan, has shot off messages to Union Electricity Minister, Mr Sushilkumar Shinde, the Minister for Environment, Mr A. Raja, the Defence Minister, Mr A.K. Antony, and MPs from Kerala, urging them to look into the matter.

Mr Balan said that there had been media reports that the experts committee of the Environment Ministry had denied clearance to the project.

The State Government had been making efforts to get the project off the blocks for the last 10 years and it had already secured all the relevant clearances.

The Minister said that the Government had been striving hard to generate enough power to take care of the requirements of the State.

COMPULSIONS

At the same time, the State could not afford generation of power using naphtha and coal in the current circumstances. It has been depending more on hydel projects.

In view of the increasing demand for power, the Government was aiming at generating an additional 500 MW over the next five years, which it proposes to achieve mainly through hydel projects, he said.

In such a scenario, denial of clearance to hydel projects would pull the State back to the days of load-shedding and power cuts, he added.

He also said that the Centre was targeting generation of 50,000 MW from hydel sources during the 11th Plan period. But it was acting contrary to this stated position by denying clearance to proposals.

The Athirapilly project, planned in the Chalakkudy river, is conceived to have an installed capacity of 163 MW.

Though there had been certain apprehensions about the project, the Kerala State Electricity Board has made it clear with the support of facts and figures that these concerns were misplaced, the Minister said.

More Stories on : Environment | Power | Kerala

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