Govt. in favour of atomic power plant

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, NOV. 16. The State Government is fully in favour of setting up an atomic power plant to generate cheap electricity, provided a consensus is arrived at on the issue, according to the Electricity Minister, Mr. Kadavoor Sivadasan.

He was replying to questions from the former Electricity Minister, Mr. R. Balakrishna Pillai, Mr. Kodiyeri Balakrishnan (CPI-M), Ms Savithri Lakshmanan (Cong.), Mr. C.K. Nanu (Janata Dal), Mr. P.T. Thomas (Cong.) and others in the Assembly today.

The Minister said Kerala had lost out to Tamil Nadu in bagging an atomic power plant because of the fear that something terrible would happen if such a plant was set up here.

The time had come to get rid of unreasonable fears in this regard.

He said Tamil Nadu had set up an atomic power plant near the inter-State border at Koodankulam, which was just 75 km from here as the crow flies.

If any mishap occurred in the plant, it would not be Chennai but Thiruvananthapuram which would be affected first by the nuclear fallout.

Kayamkulam power: The Minister said the Government was trying to get the Centre to take the electricity generated by the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) plant at Kayamkulam. If the power was brought into the common Central pool, the high tariff for the power could be brought down, he told Mr. Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan (Cong.).

The Minister said steps had been initiated to cut the expenditure of the Kerala State Electricity Board. It had been decided not to make appointments to three posts of Chief Engineers, which had fallen vacant. It had also been decided to appoint only one person to one post.

The Board was spending about Rs.23.88 crores for paying salaries to officials annually, according to the Minister. At present, the Board had 1,252 engineers in various posts.

As part of the other cost reduction steps, all 79 petrol cars of the Board were being sold. The practice of depatching pensions by post, which entailed an expenditure of Rs. 78 lakhs a month, was also being done away with, he said.

The work on four Chinese-aided power projects was in progress, the Minister said. Out of these, the Chembukadu Stage I would be completed by May 2002.

The remaining schemes- Chembukadu State II and Urumy I and II stages-would be completed in a time-bound manner. Only after the completion of these projects would the remaining 14 be considered.

He said the Chinese-aided power projects were not so attractive as was thought. It had to be studied whether the financial norms stipulated by the projects could be met by the State. Going ahead without looking into the pros and cons of the contractual obligations would be disastrous for the State.

There was a contractual obligation that the interest for the loan should be paid in dollar rate. This was not feasible as the rate of dollar against the rupee was going up. On the other hand, loans extended by agencies such as the Asian Development Bank could be considered, he said.

The Minister said it had been decided not to go ahead with the Silent Valley at present as there was nationwide opposition from environment groups and others to the project.

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