Govt blames Centre, now for rural power supply

State Minister for Power and Non-Conventional Energy Sources Mrinal Banerjee on Tuesday told the state Assembly and urged the legislators to be more vocal in convincing the Centre to allot funds for all the 18 districts, excluding Kolkata.

Banerjee was replying to a to an attention called by the eight MLAs on March 18.

The yojana was announced on April 1, 2005 with a target of providing electricity to all villages by 2007 (first phase) and to all households by 2012 (second phase).

The Centre was to provide 90 per cent of the expenditure. In the first phase, 98.7 per cent of mouzas have been reached. The state, however, has still not received Rs 60 crore from the Centre, the amount incurred in implementation of the first phase of the scheme, said Banerjee.

For the second phase of the yojana, Rs 16,000 crore has been allocated for the entire country in the 11th Five Year Plan. But according to the Union energy ministry, an amount of Rs 40,000 crore is required for the purpose.

Banerjee said: “On May 28 last year, chief ministers, state power ministers, Central ministers and the Prime Minister had held a meeting at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi.

The Prime Minister then had announced that allocations will be increased by July, 2007.

But till August, no increase was announced. In December, a partial hike was announced raising proposed expenditure to Rs 28,000 crore.

“West Bengal is the only state that had submitted projects for its 18 districts within 2006 and had Centre granted permission, work could have started early,” he added.

In January, it was found that the Centre intends to give permission for the second phase of work in only 11 districts of the state. A meeting of the monitoring committee was called on February 4. Banerjee alleged that in the meantime, Union Minister for Power Sushil Kumar Shinde inaugurated a second-phase project in Union minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi’s constituency.