Centre plans to recast power projects

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Union government has responded positively to Kerala’s long-pending demand for state-specific flexibility in the rollout of centrally-assisted power projects.
Union minister of state for power, R K Singh, in a videoconference with the state ministers, said the centre was planning to recast several of the ongoing power projects.
The existing terms and conditions for central government-assisted schemes would be reviewed.Kerala had been demanding it since long.
The Union minister, said a KSEB statement, has said the central schemes in power sector may be implemented by considering the whole state as a single unit, without insisting compliance to the urban, rural criteria that often prove impractical for Kerala, where the urban-rural divide is not glaring as in most other Indian states.
Kerala informed the centre that some of the schemes announced by the centre as part of the ‘Atmanirbhar’ programme for power utilities, were detrimental to the interest of the state and hence requested change in the criteria fixed for providing financial assistance to power utilities.
State power minister M M Mani, power secretary Dinesh Arora and KSEB chairman and managing director N S Pillai attended the meeting.
KSEB shortlists 8 agencies for setting up EV charging stations
Kerala state rlectricity board has shortlisted more than half a dozen companies/consortiums eligible for setting up electric vehicle charging stations in select locations in the state.
Among the eight companies/consortiums selected by the board after inviting expression of interest from competent agencies include two Kerala-based consortiums and a Mumbai-based Tata Power Company Ltd. The empaneled bidders are: Bridge Way Motors LLP, Kozhikode and EXICOM Pvt Ltd Gurgaon (consortium), Okaya Power Pvt Ltd, New Delhi, Indus Motor company pvt ltd, Calicut and Delta Electronics India Pvt Ltd, Chennai (Consortium), Trinity Clean tech pvt Ltd, Telangana, Energy Efficiency Services Ltd, New Delhi, Tirex Power company ltd, Ahmedabad, Tata Power Company Ltd, Mumbai and Neel Metal Products Ltd, New Delhi.
The board had recently opened an electric charging station in government secretariat compound. As a first step towards readying the state for the smooth rollout of electric vehicles, KSEB would be setting up charging centres at first in six corporation/municipality areas, namely Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kochi, Thrissur, Kozhikode and Kannur. All these stations would be coming up in KSEB-owned land parcels.
“If it was not for the pandemic, the six charging stations should have been up by now. Once the travel restrictions and other difficulties brought about by the pandemic end, the stations would be commissioned without much delay,” said one of the senior officials responsible for the project.
In association with the agencies selected, the board plans to set up 64 charging stations in Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam and Kozhikode. Of this, 33 EV charging stations would be coming up in land under government/local bodies and autonomous bodies. Also, 20 would be set up in KSEB land and the rest 11 in private land.