PM Modi to lay stone for NTPC unit at Ramagundam

New Delhi: Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday announced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would be laying the foundation stone for NTPC's 4,000 MW Ramagundam Thermal Power Station in the first week of March. Speaking to the media after a highly-successful first day meetings with the Prime Minister and Union Power Minister Piyush Goel, Rao said all obstacles for the State of Telangana had been removed now.

The Centre was ever willing to keep up the promises and provisions made under the AP Reorganisation Act 2014. All help would be extended to the Telangana Government in its march towards development. All its power needs would be taken care of and if it so needed it could even opt for more permissions, Goel assured Rao.

This could be termed a major breakthrough in the Centre-State relations vis-a-vis Telangana State as the State Government had always felt that its needs were being neglected. Several irksome and pending issues with the Centre with regard to the power sector were also resolved in a cordial atmosphere when the Chief Minister along with a delegation of his Cabinet colleagues and MPs met the Power Minister.

Piyush Goel had once remarked that Telangana Government did not seem to be interested in resolving the issues as no one pursued the mater effectively. But on Friday, after his meeting with KCR, a smiling Piyush Goel said every pending aspect falling under his purview had been cleared and officials had been instructed to speed up the processes for launching Telangana into a power surplus orbit at the earliest.

He said the NTPC project of 4,000 MW would consist of five 800 MW plants, two of which had already been cleared and would be completed by 2020. Discussions on the remaining were fruitful and the officials were asked to speed up the sanctioning process as the State Government was willing to allot the required 600 acres land in addition to the land required for the railway line.

He directed the State Government to utilise the available BHEL machinery for establishing four 270 MW plants in Manuguru in Khammam district which could come up in two years. His Ministry would write to the Environment Ministry for clearances and the Finance Ministry would give the sanction soon.

Referring to the request for solar power, he said he had asked the State Government to identify barren land that could help set up 2,500 MW solar power plant in the State. If the State Government was interested in more such facilities, it could seek them, he suggested.

The State Government had appealed for coal linkage for establishing 5,880 MW power plants in addition and under the new coal linkage policy this would be approved. He said Tadicherla -I coal block had been allocated to the State's Power Generation Corporation last year itself and meanwhile an additional 2.5 million tonne coal linkage as requested by the State Government would also be required, he added.

Welcoming Telangana State into the UDAY scheme, he said it would help the State play a crucial role in the development of the country. As for the debt of Rs 12,500 crore of the DISCOMS, he said the two Governments would go in for a MoU in this regard to help the State Government.