HYDERABAD: Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, on a visit to NTPC’s Ramagundam plant on Saturday, criticised the Central government’s policy of allocating coal to thermal power plants. Calling the policy ‘lopsided’, Rao noted that in spite of the fact that the plant was located very close to the Singereni Collieries Company Limited, the coal to it provided from Mandakini in Odisha, around 950km away. This arrangement increases the production cost, and hence the cost of power. It is a burden on the people, he said.
“The Centre should ensure that every thermal plant gets coal supplied from the nearest coal mine. It is brought in from places far way, transport charges get added to the power cost,” he said. Rao noted how the State’s Genco is exclusively using coal from SCCL. “The Centre should change its coal-allocation policy. I will write to the Centre as soon as a new government is formed. I will take initiative and make sure the policy is changed,” he said.
Rao also mooted changes in the laying of power lines by PGCIL and congratulated NTPC for planting 13.5 lakh saplings under Haritha Haaram programme. Later, Rao reviewed efforts to reopen the Ramagundam Fertiliser Factory. FCIL CEO Rajan Thapar told him the plant, once reopened, would start production in December.