TRS stages walkout on power pojects

Hyderabad, Mar 14: The Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) today (Mar 14, 2006) staged a walkout from the Andhra Pradesh Assembly protesting against what it termed was negligence of the region in the execution of power projects.

Trouble began when Party Floor Leader G Vijaya Rama Rao and member T Harish Rao alleged that Andhra and Rayalaseema regions of the state were being favoured in the award of power projects while coal, land and water were abundantly available in the Telangana region.

To a question from Mr Harish Rao and other members of the TRS, Minister for Information and Energy Mohd Ali Shabbir said the fact was 54 per cent of total proposed power generation will be in the Telangana region.

The state will produce 3,334 MW of power from new projects in the Telangana as against 420 MW in Rayalaseema and 2,150 in Andhra regions. A 2,200 MW mega power project will be coming up near here, Mr Shabbir said.

Mr Harish Rao, however, said while Telangana projects remained only on paper, funds were released to the projects in Andhra and Rayalaseema regions.

He said coal was being transported to these regions at a very high cost hiking per unit production cost.

When the Minister said projects were being spread across the state to avoid transmission losses, Mr Vijaya Rama Rao questioned whether transport of coal and water or transmission of power was costly.

Mr Harish Rao said the Union Finance Minister had agreed to sanction one mega power project for Andhra Pradesh at the request of TRS Member Vinod. However, he had alleged Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy was trying to get the project to Kakinada in Andhra Region.

Despite the Minister assuring the member that the government was not discriminating against the Telangana region, the TRS members staged walkout.

UNI