PANJIM: The Opposition Congress Party on Wednesday urged Power Minister Ramkrishna ‘Sudin’ Dhavalikar to focus on getting power from Western Grid and to take a cue from Karnataka government, who rejected the proposal of diverting forest land in favour of power lines for Goa Tamnar Power Transmission Project. The BJP government in the State was all out to destroy environment, forest and wildlife, it said.
It reiterated that the INDIA Bloc after coming to power in June this year, will immediately start the process to scrap the three linear projects which include laying of power transmission line.
The Congress said that Dhavalikar in a way exposed the BJP government, which deliberately did not explore the options of getting required power from the Western Grid up to Colvale power station, where infrastructure is ready to take it up to Xeldem power station.
It said that Dhavalikar had realised that the Tamnar Project will never be a reality and hence had spoken about the alternate solutions of getting power to meet with the demand in the State.
The new Union government will respect the sentiments of the people and utilise this infrastructure to save the environment, forest and wildlife, the party said.
The BJP government failed to promote solar power generation in the State. The latest information provided by the Power Minister to the Goa Legislative Assembly reveals that the total solar power generated in the State Goa was only 46.97 mega units. This exposes the complete failure of the government, it said.
The Congress demanded that the Power Minister should announce the timeline by which the Electricity Department will recover Rs 1,400 crore from the industrial, commercial and government consumers who are defaulters of electricity bills.
