The Hindu : Kerala News : CPI(M) urges Centre to restore Kerala’s power quota

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Wednesday, Feb 13, 2008
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CPI(M) urges Centre to restore Kerala’s power quota

Special Correspondent

Unallocated power quota cut by 183 MW
Party says it is a challenge to the people

KOTTAYAM: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) Kerala State conference now on here has called upon the Centre to restore the share of power that Kerala has been receiving from the Central pool.

A resolution adopted by the delegates’ session of the conference here on Tuesday pointed out that Kerala’s share of unallocated power had been reduced by 183 MW in two instalments beginning April, 2007. The quota was slashed by 133 MW on April 1, 2007 and by another 50 MW on December 27 last year. The Centre’s stance was pushing Kerala to load-shedding and power cut and amounted to victimisation of Kerala for its refusal to go by the Centre’s directives for the privatisation of the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB), the resolution said.

Kerala, it said, was faced with a serious power crisis. The State’s power requirement had gone up by leaps and bounds over the last few years. On an average, the State needed around 5 million units of power every day. The rise in the peak load demand was of the order of 200 MW.

The Left Democratic Front government had given 8.70 lakh new power connections. This too had resulted in a sharp increase in power consumption. The Central decision to slash Kerala’s share of power from the unallocated quota was a challenge to the people of the State. The Centre must immediately restore the State’s share and help Kerala avert power cut and load-shedding, the resolution added.

In a separate resolution, the CPI(M) conference called upon the Centre to withdraw its decision to place the State’s rich mineral sand resources to multinational monopolies. Kerala, the resolution pointed out, was rich in ilmenite, zircon, monozite and other mineral sands. Out of the total share of ilmenite in the world, 7 per cent was in Kerala. Out of this, 38 per cent was in the State. There was tremendous scope for utilisation of Kerala’s rich mineral sand deposits. Multinational monopolies had been trying for years to gain access to this rich resource base.

The previous United Democratic Front government had decided to allow the private sector to go in for exploitation of these mineral resources.

However, the LDF was opposed to this policy and had decided to allow mineral sand-mining only in the public sector.

The Central government’s decision to allow 100 per cent private foreign investment in mineral sand-mining would undo all that the State government had done to protect the rich resource of Kerala.

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