TS govt looking at Rs 4,800 crore revenue from mining

​Hyderabad: Telangana government is eyeing Rs 4,800 crore revenue from mining industry this year as against Rs 2,770 crore it garnered last year, State Minister for IT and Industries, K T Rama Rao, said on Monday.

"We are the highest mining income State among the five southern states of India. Last year, our revenues were Rs 2,770 crore. But this year, we are looking at about Rs 4,800 crore. For sand mining, major and minor minerals, we have a well drafted policy," K T R said, while addressing the FICCI National Executive meeting here. The minister also said the government is buying 1,200-1,400 MW on a daily basis to meet the power requirements and the state has already awarded 3,000 mw worth of renewable power projects that would require Rs 15,000 crore investment. On the Open Access Policy, he said, there are certain limitations as it may potentially impact the revenues of the loss-making Discoms.

Earlier in his address, he said there was an acute power shortage when the TRS government took over in June, 2014, but the situation changed after it started buying power. "We started as a power deficit state. We saw industrialists holding dharnas demanding adequate power for their industries. That bad was the situation then. We started buying power from day one, besides improving the states power generation. Today, we are happy to share with you we buy 1,200 MW-1,400 MW on a daily basis," he said.

He said the government is in the process of ramping up power production and as on date, the Plant Load Factor (PLF) - an indicator of power generation capacity of a power plant - of state-owned power projects stand at around 90 per cent, against 60 per cent earlier. According to him, the IT sector in the state has created about 80,000 jobs during the last two years and is now ranked second in terms of exports on all-India basis, behind Bengaluru.