The Hindu : Karnataka News : Armed forces security to be sought for major installations, says Eshwarappa

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Karnataka

Karnataka

Armed forces security to be sought for major installations, says Eshwarappa

Special Correspondent

Minister to negotiate power purchase rate with Chhattisgarh Chief Minister

Permission for power generation through windmills to be reviewed
Meeting on August 8 on reducing allocation to companies with permission to generate power

Ritual: The Minister for Energy K.S. Eshwarappa accompanied by his wife Jayalakshmi offering ‘bagina’ to the Tunga at Gajanur on Sunday.

SHIMOGA: Minister for Energy K.S. Eshwarappa said here on Sunday that he would hold talks with Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh Raman Singh on the possibility of revising the rate of power to be purchased from that State considering the observation that the current rate was on the higher side.

He was talking to presspersons at Gajanur after offering “Bagina” to the Tunga. His wife Jalayakshmi accompanied him.

Mr. Eshwarappa said he would urge the Centre on Monday to deploy security personnel from the armed forces at vital installations in the State such as dams, reservoirs, and power generating stations in the wake of the recent serial bomb blasts in Bangalore.

He hoped that the procedure for it would be completed within a month.

The Minister said that the withdrawal of load shedding throughout the State had been possible owing to improvement in the levels of reservoirs of hydel projects and steady supply of coal from other States to thermal projects.

He said that the Government would lay more stress on power generation through non-conventional methods such as solar, biomass, cogeneration and windmill.

Mr. Eshwarappa said that the permission for power generation through windmills would be reviewed as the companies concerned were generating 10 per cent of the 9,000 MW expected from them. He said that in a meeting in Bangalore on August 6 with KPTCL and ESCOMS officials and leaders of the farmers’ organisations, he would consider the suggestion to reduce the allocation of power generation to the companies having the permission and allocate it to others who were genuinely interested in power generation.

Income tax

The Minister said that some companies had obtained permission for power generation to allegedly avoid Income Tax.

Asked about the opposition from environmentalists to proposed thermal projects at five places including Tadadi in Uttara Kannada and Chamalapura near Mysore, he said he would hold a discussion with them to convince them that the system to be adopted ruled out fears of air and water pollution and other environmental hazards.

Municipal president M.Shankar, president of the Shimoga city BJP unit Jnaneshwar, and councillor S.N. Channabasappa were present.

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