NEW DELHI: Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot has turned to Congress president Sonia Gandhi in the hope of speeding up state-level mining clearances for starting production from coal from blocks allotted to its power projects in Chattisgarh where the party is in power.
In a letter to the party president last week, Gehlot said the delay in mining clearances for the Parsa coal block from the Chattisgarh government could leave 4,340 megawatt generation capacity in Rajasthan stranded because the mineable reserves of two mines fuelling Rajasthan’s power plants since 2013 are expected to be exhausted by the end of this month.
Gehlot’s knock on Gandhi’s door comes after his appeal to party colleague and Chattisgarh counterpart Bhupesh Baghel in October and letters from his senior bureaucrats seeking interventions by the Union power and coal ministries went unheeded, as first reported by TOI on December 12.
