Thaindian News

Patna, July 27 (IANS) Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar Wednesday blamed the central government for the power shortage in the state.

“The centre is sitting over demand for coal linkages. It is not providing coal linkages to Bihar for power plants by private investors. It is a big stumbling block,” Nitish Kumar said.

Addressing a conference Powering Bihar, organised by the Independent Power Producers Association of India in association with Bihar Electricity Regulatory Commission and others here, the chief minister said the central government was not ready to listen to his suggestion to revamp the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana, a scheme for rural electricity infrastructure.

“This is a faulty scheme and I have been raising the issue since 2006 but the centre is not doing anything to modify it,” he said.

The chief minister said the low-capacity transformers of 16 kilovolt ampere (KVA) and 25 KVA being used under the scheme cannot take much load.

“The state has hundreds of burnt transformers due to a faulty scheme that needs to be changed,” Nitish Kumar said, suggesting the scheme should incorporate the provision of installing either 63 KVA or 100 KVA transformers.

He recalled that when he came to power in November 2005, Bihar’s own power generation was zero. But in the last five and a half years, the state government has initiated several measures for development of the power sector.

“Now Bihar’s own two power plants located at Kanti in Muzaffarpur district and Barauni in Begusarai district are generating more than 50-60 MW power,” he said.

He admitted that Bihar was heavily dependent on supply of electricity from the central pool. “Bihar is trying to set up power plants but it will take some time,” he said.