Electricity to all homes by 2012: Govt.
mynews 06-Dec-2009
Abhijit Das

Udupi: Union Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde today said the UPA government at the Centre would provide power connection to all homes in the country by the year 2012.

Speaking to newspersons after inaugurating 'Annadharma', a dining hall at Sri Krishna Mutt here, he said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was determined to see the country attain self-sufficiency in the energy sector in the next two years to compete with nations like the United States and China.

To achieve this goal, the state government had targeted to produce an additional power of 78,000 MW during the 11th five year plan period as against the 56,000 MW power generated during the previous three five year plans. During the 8th, 9th and 10th plan periods, the country could provide power to only 67,000 villages. Whereas, thegovernment had set a target to provide power to an additional 1.15 lakh villages during the next two years, he said.

Replying to a question, the minister said his ministry had sent a Central team to Kudli in Bijapur district in the state for inspection on the proposed 4000 MW unit mega thermal power plant.

The ministry was awaiting the report. If the state government came forward to provide required land and other facilities, the ministry was ready to approve the proposal. As power is in the concurrent list in the Constitution, the Centre was ready to provide all assistance in power generation projects to power starved Karnataka.

To another query on the controversial Tadadi thermal power project, proposed in Uttara Kannada, Mr Shinde said there was ''no response'' from the stategovernment on the proposed project.