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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Thursday urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi for additional supply of rail rakes for coal transport and to declare the Raigarh-Pugalur HVDC (High Voltage Director Current) Transmission Corridor as strategic and of national Importance. These were part of a memorandum given by Stalin during his meeting with Modi at Delhi.
The short supply of rakes caused insufficient supply of coal to Tangedco and so, demand and supply could not be matched. The gap in power generation is thus being filled by buying power at exorbitant rates at energy exchanges. Stalin requested at least 20 rakes for transport of 72,000 tonnes of coal per day from Talcher/IB valley to Paradip and Visakhapatnam port. Further, the railways may be requested to allot adequate quantum of coal rakes to realise the entire quantum of allotted linkage coal.
Stalin urged Modi to declare the Raigarh-Pugalur HVDC Transmission Corridor as strategic and of national importance. Tangedco has paid ₹601 crore (since 2015) and ₹13.22 crore (data available since 2020) towards the systems without any usage. The transmission charges on account of the Raigarh-Pugalur-Trissur HVDC system, if treated as a regional asset, would impose a financial burden of ₹720 crore per annum on Tamil Nadu whereas the tariff burden would be ₹216 crore per annum if it were declared as a national asset.
Sharing of cess and surcharge
Stalin also sought the sharing of proceeds of cess and surcharge with States.
He said the levy of cesses and surcharges must be reversed immediately and all such cesses and surcharges must be merged with the basic rate of tax so that the states receive their legitimate share of the revenue.
It is the serious concern of the state that the size of the divisible pool of taxes is steadily shrinking as the Centre is increasingly resorting to levy of cesses and surcharges which are not shareable with states, he added.
The Chief Minister urged the Centre to extend the period of GST compensation by at least two years beyond June 2022. He also urged the Centre to release its matching share of the premium subsidy for Rabi 2020-2021 by relaxing the calculation of GoI liabilities based on loss cost.
Other requests
Stalin sought a PLI scheme in footwear manufacturing to increase the productivity of existing players.
The state should be provided preferential allotment to the Tamil Nadu Defence Industrial Corridor and allocate test facilities to the corridor, Stalin said.
He also urged Modi for laying of a railway line to the Multi Modal Logistic Park at Mappedu.
He sought approval under a 50:50 equity sharing basis between the Centre and state government for Phase II of Chennai Metro Rail Project. The Chennai Beach–Chennai Egmore 4th line sanctioned by the Centre at the cost of ₹280.74 crore is yet to take off since the consent of the RBI and defence departments could not be obtained. The Centre is requested to expedite handing over of land to the Southern Railways, Stalin said.
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