Wednesday, May 25 2005 09:38 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Democratic Front (DF) Government's attempt to forge a consensus through an all-party meeting to fight the mounting energy crisis, failed yesterday (May 24, 2005), as the Opposition Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) decided to go ahead with their stir against load shedding in Maharashtra.

The two-hour-long meeting, which Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh held with leaders of various political parties last evening, ended with the Opposition leaders emerging out of the meeting not satisfied with the Government attempts to fight the energy crisis.

"The DF Government spoke on energy generation projections in future years, but there is hardly any thing which the Government seems to have done to reduce load shedding in the State," leader of the Opposition in legislative Assembly, Narayan Rane told reporters in Mumbai.

"Since the load shedding is unlikely to reduce, the Sena agitation will continue," he added.

State BJP president, Nitin Gadkari, on whose insistence the meeting was held, too said that the proposed 'rasta-roko' agitation of the BJP on May 30 would continue as per the plan.

"As an Opposition, we have every right to lodge protest against load shedding and we will do it," he told reporters in Mumbai.

In this closed-door meeting held at Government guesthouse Sahyadri, Energy Minister Dilip Valse-Patil made a presentation to leaders of political parties on the present energy scenario and the future energy projections.

The Government urged the Opposition to avoid violence during agitations, official sources said.

"The Government urged us to ensure that violent incidents do not take place in the agitation. We assured that we will lead them through democratic means," Gadkari said.

Rane too said that the Government urged him to ensure that violence and damage to MSEB property is avoided during future agitations.

Earlier, Rane criticised the DF government for making no efforts that will alleviate woes of the people who now face long hours of load shedding.

"The present energy deficit is nearly 7000 Megawatt (MW) and the addition in power generation will be so miniscule that the load shedding will not reduce," Rane told reporters, adding that the Maharashtra Government should prepare a plan on how to reduce load shedding.

According to Rane, the Government should invest money in power generation rather than depending on private parties, since the previous announcements by private parties in power generations have not materialised.

Rane said that he pointed out the inefficiency and corruption that has proliferated in the MSEB and stressed on the need to reduce transmission and distribution losses and power thefts.

Gadkari too claimed that the energy crisis was likely to worsen in coming days. "The power deficit was likely to rise three-fold in coming years and today's meeting was to discuss the issue," he said.

According to Gadkari, the BJP made some important suggestions to the Government to fight the energy crisis.