Replying to supplementaries during the question hour, the minister said the New China Light Power Company had chosen an Indian partner after the US based Cogentrix Power walked out of the project citing delays in the project.Kumaramangalam told SR Bommai (JD-S) that the Hong Kong based company will announce the name of the Indian partner soon.

In reply to another question, the minister said the government had not received any communication from the Maharashtra government regarding any move to do away with the second stage of Enron project in the stage.Kumaramangalam also said some Chinese companies had evinced interest in setting up thermal power projects in the country.

He said the state governments were allowed to enter into bilateral cooperation with the private sector firms for setting up additional power generation.

``We encourage the states to look at the cost per megawatt so that tariff rate comes down'', Kumaramangalam said.

Replying to another question, minister of state for power Jayawanti Mehta said power shortage in Gujarat, which stood at 4208 million units, would be reduced once 500 mw Jamnagar project of Reliance Power Ltd gets commissioned.She said the Reliance project has already been given the techno-economic clearance by central electricity authority. The minister said the 515 mw Hazira project of Essar Power and 655 mw project of Gujarat torrent energy corp in paguthan have already been commissioned.

Mehta said the ministry has not received any proposal from Essar Power to set up another power project in Jamnagar.