Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) has given a call for scrapping the power purchase agreement between the government of Madhya Pradesh and S.Kumars by asserting that it puts into jeopardy over `18,000 crore of public money by undertaking to pay for the high cost of power from the “unviable” Maheshwar power project for the next 35 years.
In a statement, issued by senior NBA activists Alok Agarwal, and Chittaroopa Palit, it has also been demanded that the state government should take immediate measures to recover the cost of dam site land and other properties mutated in favour of Shree Maheshwar Hydel Power Corporation Ltd. (SMHPCL).
Public Financial Institutions have also been asked not to disburse any further public money to the Maheshwar project promoters, in the light of their “wilful defaults” in the repayment of loans secured under the Inter Corporate Deposit (ICD) scheme of the Madhya Pradesh State Industrial Corporation Limited (MPSIDC).
Focussing attention on the recent decision of the state Cabinet to set up special courts to recover the outstanding dues of `2192 crores from defaulting industrialists who had borrowed hundreds of crores of rupees under the ICD scheme, NBA has pointed out that this includes the recovery of over `83 crores from the S.Kumars group.
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4 students on V-Day picnic feared drowned
Gautam S. Mengle
Mumbai
Feb. 14: A Valentine’s Day picnic turned tragic for four students, who are feared to be drowned, after they went for a swim in a dam in Pune on Monday. Though eyewitnesses claimed that they saw the boys getting drowned, despite several hours of rescue efforts, their bodies had not been fished out of the water at the time of going to press. According to the police, the deceased were students of the Sharadchandra Pawar College of Engineering in Junnar, Pune.