Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Vidarbha MPs meet PM over coal block to Adani Power

Vidarbha MPs meet PM over coal block to Adani Power

Wed, Jul 29 11:40 PM

Nagpur, Jul 29 (PTI) Seven MPs from Vidarbha region, cutting across party lines, today met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and handed over a letter to save tigers and rich forests by allotting an alternative coal block to Adani Power Ltd. Former Union Minister and local Congress MP Vilas Muttemwar along with Datta Meghe (Congress, Wardha), Anandrao Adsul (Shiv Sena, Amravati), Hansraj Ahir (BJP, Chandrapur), Sanjay Dhore (BJP, Akola), Marotrao Kowase (Congress, Gadchiroli) and Pratap Jadhav (Shiv Sena, Buldana) submitted a signed letter to Manmohan Singh in Delhi today. The letter said 1,750 hectare coal block has been alloted to Adani Power Ltd for operating a captive opencast mine for their proposed thermal power plant coming up in Tiroda in Gondia district. The coal block falls under the buffer zone of Tadoba- Andhari Tiger Reserve and the biodiversity in the area mainly consists of 18 animal species, nine of which including tiger and leopard are endangered species, it said. The company proposes to mine four million tonnes of coal per annum for which it will have to excavate 17 times as much soil, 78 million tonnes per year and will use 55 tonnes of explosives for the blasting operations which is likely to disturb the entire population of 45 tigers in TATR, it said. The MPs urged Singh to allot Adani Power an alternative coal block where there is no forest and wildlife.

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