Rajpura, March 2
Punjab is ready to set up a nuclear power plant, if offered by the Centre.

This was stated by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal while addressing mediapersons after laying the foundation stone of a 1,320-MW coal-based thermal plant at Nalas village in Rajpura today.

He said Punjab would be a power-surplus state in the next four years. The 1,980-MW super thermal plant at Talwandi Sabo and the 540-MW thermal plant at Goindwal Sahib were near completion, he claimed. He said the Rajpura thermal plant got delayed due to legal issues. It would be set up in 1,080 acres at a cost of around Rs 9,000 crore.

The state government had also embarked upon a programme to generate power from non-conventional and renewable sources of energy. He said the total generation in that sector was only 65 MW in 2007 and now 202-MW capacity had been added by installing 29 mini biomass power plants. The capacity would be further enhanced to 400 MW over the next few years.

Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said the state government would pass on the benefits accruing from the sale of power to the consumers by bringing down power rates. The effort would be to make available power to the people in the state at the cheapest rates in the country, he said.

Earlier, chairman and MD of Larsen & Toubro AM Naik said the project would be completed before January, 2014. He said the company would also invest about Rs 4,500 crore for setting up an additional unit of 660 MW at the Rajpura thermal plant.

Prominent among others present on the occasion were Manoranjan Kalia, district SAD president, Patiala, Ajaib Singh Mukhmailpur, Balwinder Singh Bhunder and Prof Prem Singh Chandumajra, SAD secretary-general Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and administrative member, PSEB, Gurbachan Singh Bachi.