Neeraj Rohmetra
Jammu, July 4: Amidst the fanfare surrounding the first visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the border State, Minister for Health and Medical Education, Taj Mohi-ud-Din has stirred a fresh controversy by claiming that the 240 MW Uri-II Hydro Electric Project, which had been inaugurated today, has no license to operate.
The senior Minister affiliated with Congress party, who is also legislator from Uri made these claims despite the fact that the project was inaugurated by the Prime Minister today in presence of
Governor, NN Vohra, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Union Minister of State for Power, Piyush Goyal and Chief Secretary, Iqbal Khanday.
Interestingly, the Cabinet Minister has made these allegations despite being fully aware of the fact the Chief Minister is holding the charge of Power Ministry in the State and the top hierarchy of the Power Department are fully aware of all facts pertaining to the Uri-II Project.
“It is also well known fact that as per the earlier program, the Prime had to conclude his visit to the State only after inauguration of the prestigious Rail project in Katra and there was no proposal to visit Uri. However, the entire program was rescheduled only after Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah in his one-to-one meeting with Mr Modi on June 20 in New Delhi urged the latter to also inaugurate the Hydro Power Project”, official sources said.
“Astonishingly, the Cabinet Minister is now pointing fingers at the Centre for inaugurating an ‘illegal project’, when the State administration is fully aware of all the facts”, sources remarked.
Castigating the Union Government for inaugurating the project, Minister for Health and Medical Education, Taj Mohi-ud-Din told EXCELSIOR, “National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) hasn’t obtained any license from the State Government to run the 240 MW Hydro Electric Power Project and therefore, the project is presently being run illegally without obtaining the required mandatory permissions”.
“Even former Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh was slated to inaugurate the Uri-II project in June, 2013 but the proposal was deferred after I took up the matter with the Centre. I had send written objections to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) about the status of the matter and also informed the Central Government that the NHPC hadn’t obtained the required license from the State Government”, he added.
“It was only after objections raised by us that Dr. Manmohan Singh, the then Prime Minister dropped the proposal of inaugurating the Power project to avoid any controversy”, said the Minister adding, “as per the existing laws of the State, NHPC needs to first apply for license to the J&K Water Resources Authority, which has to further take up the case with Cabinet. It is only after the Cabinet sanction that the Company can run the project”.
Dwelling further, Mr Taj said, “though NHPC had applied long back to get the license, the Company had been denied the same as it failed to meet the statutory guidelines. As per the agreement with Centre, NHPC was supposed to construct a bridge, set up a stadium, construct Uri bus stand besides provide employment to local youth living within 5 Km radius of the project. However, all these promises remained unfulfilled”.
Asked why the State Government invited the Prime Minister to inaugurate the project, when they were aware of the fact, he quipped, “all the records of previous communication are lying in the PMO office and they should have taken cognizance of them before taking the final decision”.
To a pointed query if he would raise the matter vociferously in the Cabinet, he said, “I am going to take up the issue in the next Cabinet meeting. How can we allow the project to be operated illegally and without obtaining all the mandatory permissions are required”.
On June 28, last year the matter had also been taken up by the State Minister with the then Union Power Minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde. “As per the MoU, which was ratified by the cabinet, the recruitment for class III and class IV employees were to be made from local areas and in addition to 12 per cent power as royalty from the projects, State was to get 15 per cent at bus-bar rate”.
“As per the Water Resource Management Act-2010, which enables State to charge from power producing Corporation for harnessing State’s water potential for electricity generation, NHPC had to pay nearly Rs 220 crore for the project, but they haven’t paid a single penny”, the Minister added.
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