The Orissa government has demanded before the Centre to change the existing power policy to enable the state to get at least 20 percent of power to be generated by the coal fired projects, with Independent Power Producer (IPP) status, free of cost.
This would be in line with the hydro power policy which provides for 12 percent free power to the host state.
The application of same policy for the coal based IPPs would be able to compensate the states which incur a lot of social and environmental costs for power projects.
Similarly, the coal rejects based power plants should provide 33 percent power to the host state free of cost with a rider on compulsory ash utilisation. Besides, the Government of India (GoI) should launch a Feeder Separation Scheme (FSS) for rural, agriculture and urban areas. These demands were made by the minister of state for energy, Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak, in the power ministers’ conference held at New Delhi. While Orissa is facing huge shortage of power, a significant part of the Central generating capacity in the state is exported. In this backdrop, at least 300 Mw may be allocated to the state from the unallocated share of the eastern region.
Nayak demanded that the Union ministry of power (MoP) should restore 500 Mw share from the NTPC plant at Kaniha, which was surrendered by the state with an understanding to restore this as and when the state’s requirement went up.
The minister also pointed out that Orissa was promised 300 Mw from Subernapuri power project developed by National Hydro-Power Corporation (NHPC) in Arunachal Pradesh. However, this is yet to happen.
He argued that Orissa has been deprived of the benefits of the Restructured APDRP scheme which comprised a grant component and a loan component. Nayak urged the Centre to take a favourable view on providing funds to Orissa under the scheme.
