November 14, 2008

Ban on Maoists up to the Centre: Yechury

KOLKATA, Nov. 13 : CPI(M) Polit buro member Mr Sitaram Yechury said today both political campaign and administrative action were needed to tackle Maoist attacks in West Bengal. Asked whether the West Bengal government should ban the Maoists as the Trianmul Congress chief Miss Mamata Banerjee had dared it to do so, Mr Yechury said it was for the Centre to take a policy decision on the issue.
He said Maoist activities were causing concern in different parts of the country and the Prime Minister had initiated steps to deal with the problem. The Left Front-government had asked for additional battalions of para-military forces from the Centre, but the latter pleaded its inability to deploy them on the ground that they were needed for election duties, he said.
Speaking at a party programme Mr Yechury charged that the bailout package being offered by different nationalised banks in the country would benefit only private players of the share market and not the common man. The current global financial crisis, he said, was the result of the neo-liberal policy of the capitalist world. He questioned why Prime Minister Mr Manmohan Singh was now calling for insulating the country's economy against international finance capital, while he had once been a strong advocate of integrating the country's economy with the globalisation process.

Astonfield sticks to Rs 2000cr green energy plan


Kolkata, November 14, 2008: Astonfield Renewable Resources Limited (ARRL) plans to invest close to Rs 2,000 crore over the next two years on renewable energy projects in India.This is part of the money raised by the company earlier when it had decided to foray into India.
According to Sourabh Sen, co-chairman, ARRL, “Raising fresh funds is an issue now but we have more banks in US and Japan part financing all our projects. A few of the projects are self-funded. We hope to break even in six to seven years from now.”

Sen said ARRL has seen a steady growth of business in 2007 and first quarter of 2008, where the first official renewable energy allotments were received in Bengal, including 10 megawatt of biomass, 5 megawatt of solar PV, and 1 megawatt of manure-to-power, to be executed in Gangarampur, Bankura, and Kalyani, respectively.

Since then, last year, ARRL bought its first plot of land in Bankura, a total of 26 acres for a 5 megawatt solar PV plant, which ARRL will start constructing later this year. According to Sen, ARRL is also in final stage to bid on the allotment for a 54 megawatt municipal solid waste-to-energy plant in Dhapa, a project the company has been working on since October 2007. The specific projects in West Bengal will cost approximately Rs 60 crore for the 10 megawatt biomass project, Rs 100 crore for the 5 megawatt solar, and Rs 8 crore for a 1 megawatt of manure-to-power project.
Sen said that the Haryana Renewable Energy Development Agency (HAREDA) has issued a letter of intent to ARRL for setting up solar power projects of 3 megawatt in the state with the option of two more in future.

The tariff for generation of solar energy has been fixed at Rs 15.96 per unit by the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) for projects to be commenced up to December 31, 2009, and Rs 15.16 per unit for projects commencing between December 31, 2009 and March 31, 2010. Astonfield has also set up an office in Mumbai to focus on projects in South and West India.