It was win-win situation for both Uttar Pradesh and Centre as Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal emerged from the meeting in all smiles saying the meeting was a success and all the issues have been resolved. Goyal had almost an hour long meeting with Chief Minister at his official residence on Tuesday when they tried to sort out the problems.
“The meeting was successful. Arrangements have been made for giving more power in the cities and villages. We have also sorted out the problems of coal linkages being faced by our power plants,” Chief Minister told reporters here. He said the government is committed to improve power generation for last many years. WE are also strengthening power distribution and transmission. “In state sector construction of 1000 MW Anpara D and in private sectors two units of 1320 MW each in lalitpur and Bara is in progress,” he said.
Chief Minister also raised the issue of coal scarcity power projects were facing. “All the power plants should have enough stock of coal before onset of monsoon,” he said and requested union power minister to deal UP as a land locked state which needs regular supply of coal. Yadav also asked for ultra mega power project for UP and availability of coal for lalitpur thermal power plant.
Piyush Goyal in his interaction with the media said that all the issues have been sorted out and the problem of coal shortage has also been solved. Elaborating on the promises made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give 24x7 power in UP, he said the target would be fulfilled very soon. “I have accepted all the demands of the UP government and even talked to the coal ministry over the supply of coal to the power plants in UP,” he said.
The Union minister said that shortage of coal is an old issue. At present no state is facing coal crisis. All the power plants have sufficient coal in stock. Coal India has also increased its production by 12 per cent and at most of the power plants have a stock of 26 to 28 days,” he said.
He said that before this meeting, he had met Akhilesh Yadav in Delhi and they have sorted out several issues there also. “My Varanasi and lucknow visits were successful. Starting from Assi Ghat in Varanasi and meeting UP governor and then UP CM in lucknow I have got a better view of UP. Our endeavor is to make UP as a power surplus state,” he said. The Union power minister said that efforts were on to provide separate feeder for the rural areas under Deen Dayal gramin jyoti scheme to run irrigitional facilities.