With semi-urban and rural areas in Madhya Pradesh reeling under severe power crisis, the state's power generating company is pressing hard to increase its capacity, with a view to meet the growing demands and save the ruling BJP from power blues in the 2013 assembly polls.

Against a peak demand of 7500-8000 MW, the state is generating 2932.5 MW from thermal power plants and 915 MW from the hydel source to meet the requirements while trying to bridge the gap through other sources like the central pool and by purchasing power from other states.

"We will start generation from two units of 250 MW each from the Satpuda Thermal Power Plant, Sarni and also 2x600 (1200 MW) from the Singaji Thermal Power Plant (Phase-I) in 2012-13 to enhance power generation in the state," Madhya Pradesh Power Generating Company Limited (MPPGCL) Chairman and Chief Managing Director (CMD), K M Sajnani told PTI today.

Besides, State Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has also announced setting up of a 660 MW unit in place of the existing 62.5X5 (312.5 MW) units in Sarni which was over 40 years old, he said.

The Ministry of Environment and Forest had given conditional clearance to the under-construction 250X2 MW units at Sarni stating that once the generation commences from these units then the company has to dismantle the old five units.

Therefore, the state government has decided to set up another unit of 660 MW at Sarni in place of the old ones.

The proposal and the feasibility report to set up this unit has been sent to the Project Review Committee of the state government which is expected to give its approval soon to the project

The estimated cost of the proposed unit is around Rs 4200 crore and 80 per cent of the project cost will be met through finance from outside and 20 per cent will be the contribution of the state government, the CMD said.

"Besides, we are also working on setting up 1700 MW thermal power plant under Singaji Phase-II in Khandwa district for which land has been acquired, water has been allocated and permission for the construction of 275 meter long chimney is awaited from the Ministry of Civil Aviation," he said.

The Ministry of Coal is also expected to allocate coal block for the proposed unit soon and once all these formalities are over, then the work on the project will also commence to meet the growing demand of power in the state.

However, Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) Chief Spokesman, Manak Agrawal said that despite tall claims made by the state government to solve the power crisis by 2012-13, the Congress is sure that they won't be able to do much on this score.

The rural areas get power supply merely for four-five hours in a day while semi-urban areas were facing 10-12 hours power cuts.

The BJP has promised that before the 2003 assembly polls, it will solve the power crisis but it has failed to do anything concrete in this regard, he said.

Power, roads and water will be a major issue again in 2013 as it was in 2003 and 2008 assembly polls, he added.