Facing a power deficit of 4,000 MW by Tamil Nadu, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa shot off a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying she had been requesting for additional allocation but "to our disappointment", the Centre's response has been "totally negative."
The Centre cited transmission constraints "virtually negativing" the state request for allocating the power surrendered by the Delhi Government, she said.
"Therefore, it stands to reason that at least, the entire power generated by Central Generating Stations in Tamil Nadu by the Neyveli Lignite Corporation, the Madras Atomic Power Station at Kalpakkam and the joint venture unit between NTPC and Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Ltd (TANGEDCO) commissioned recently at Vallur near Chennai totalling 2830 MW is allocated to Tamil Nadu," she said.
Noting that there were no transmission constraints in this, she said the power could be allocated as an interim arrangement to meet the huge power deficit and to alleviate the severe hardship till all the new power projects under construction were fully commissioned.
Observing the "extraordinary lengths" to which her government went to ensure the smooth commissioning of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project, Jayalalithaa said Singh also acknowledged the effort in handling the "very complex and large scale law and order issues".
"In return, I expect the Government of India to dedicate the entire power of 2000 MW from this project on successful commissioning to the state of Tamil Nadu," she said.
"This request is not an unreasonable one and not without a precedent", the Chief Minister said and pointed out the first two units of 500 MW each totalling 1000 MW produced by the Central Generating Station at Simhadri in Andhra Pradesh has been entirely given to the state.
"I request the Government of India to adopt the same yardstick to dedicate the entire power produced by the Kudankulam Power Project to the state of Tamil Nadu in the interest of the people of this state suffering from severe power deficit", she added.