The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : NDA regime blamed for power crisis

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 01, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

NDA regime blamed for power crisis

Special Correspondent

Bangalore: The Legislative Council on Thursday witnessed heated exchanges between members of the Opposition and ruling parties over who was responsible for the power crisis in the country since 1996.

Participating in the budget discussion, Y.S.V. Datta of the Janata Dal (Secular) stated that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was to be blamed for it, and it was the Janata Dal (S) president and the then Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda who was responsible for decentralising the power generation up to 1,000 MW.

Quoting some correspondence between Mr. Deve Gowda and Mr. Vajpayee, Mr. Datta said that during his first stint as Prime Minister for 13 days, Mr. Vajpayee sanctioned a generation unit of Enron for Maharashtra.

Though he could have rescinded the decisions of the previous government, Mr. Gowda did nothing of that sort. But the NDA Government chose to scrap the Cogentrix project in Mangalore, he said.

Refuted

Rejecting Mr. Datta’s claim, Minister for Medical Education Ramachandra Gowda termed the Cogentrix project as “idiotic.”

The Minister asserted that Karnataka would have lost over Rs. 30,000 crore had the project been allowed to generate electricity, as it insisted that the State purchase electricty at the rate of Rs. 14 per unit.

V.S. Ugrappa (Congress) suggested that if the Government was committed to political and human values it should seek a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the assets of all MLAs, MLCs and MPs.

Acting Chairman N. Thippanna allowed over 20 members to participate in the discussion, but the House witnessed repeated interruptions and the repeated pleadings of the Chair did not have any effect.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Karnataka