Jharkhand power minister hits out at his own officers

Jharkhand power minister Lalchand Mahto has blamed the bureaucracy of his own government, particularly the chief secretary and the finance secretary, for stalling the state's rural electrification project. This has revealed the in-fighting in the government.

During the state assembly debate on the Rs 560 crore budget for the energy department, Mahto alleged the chief secretary had directed the energy secretary to cancel the tender awarded to RITES Ltd for electrifying 5,000 villages by 2007. No allocation of funds for the project has been made in the current fiscal.

Mahto accused his government's finance department of delaying consent to his proposal for a Rs 75 crore project for rural electrification.

The minister said, "It is a sort of trap. It makes endless queries without any reason".

The opposition members were elated by the minister's stand. Mahto said he would not cancel the tender. He told the assembly he had directed the Jharkhand State Electricity Board (JSEB) to sign an agreement with the public sector company RITES Ltd for works worth Rs 75 crore.

RITES, a company under the ministry of railways, bagged the contract. after quoting the lowest price of Rs 6 lakh per village.

In a review meeting with the power minister, JSEB officials had admitted the number of villages provided with electricity till date was below 1,000.

The rural electrification target of the current fiscal was brought down to only 1,500 villages.

Jharkhand government had promised to give power to 5,000 villages within fiscal 2002-03. It has covered 610 villages till date. Chattisgarh provided power to 98 per cent of the villages targeted in the last fiscal.