Patna, April 14: Bihar will highlight the failure of the central government to give funds to the state for the energy sector under the backward regions grant fund, power minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav said today.

The minister said he would raise the issue at the conference of energy ministers scheduled for April 27 and 28 in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh.

"Delay in release of money under the fund forced us to take loan for completion of works which had already been started. I am going to raise this issue in the conference which Union power minister Piyush Goyal will also attend," Bijendra said.

During the UPA-II regime, Rs 12,000 crore had been sanctioned for Bihar as special assistance under the fund. Out of that, Rs 8,300 crore had been earmarked for the energy sector. The money was to be provided during the 12th five-year plan period: 2012-17.

"The Centre has so far sanctioned a little over Rs 1,400 crore (Rs 300 crore + Rs 1,127 crore) to us, keeping the remaining funds release pending," Bijendra said. "We took over Rs 5,000 crore as loan from other agencies for completion of power projects, anticipating that funds would be released but they were not though the 12th plan period has come to an end. How can we sit silent in such a situation?"

He said he would also pitch for tariff equalisation.

"We purchase power at a rate of about Rs 4.70 per unit from the central grid, whereas in certain southern states power is supplied at about Rs 3.70 per unit. Tariff equalisation would be a big relief for a state like Bihar.... The state would save around Rs 200 crore annually," Bijendra said.

Bihar gets 2,942MW of power from the central grid daily and also buys power from the open market .

"We spend around Rs 3,500 crore per year on buying power," said a Bihar State Power Holding Company official. "The bulk comes from the central pool. Any downward revision of the central pool rate would be a big relief."

Bihar is also going to draw the Centre's attention towards the fate of two MoUs which had been signed with NTPC and NHPC to set up power plants in Kajra (Lakhisarai) and Pirpainti (Bhagalpur) respectively. The terms of both the agreements have expired.

"We will raise this issue because the Centre needs to be proactive in telling the NTPC and NHPC to renew the MoUs and take the process of setting up power plants forward," said a source in Bihar State Power Generation Company.

The official said the state would also urge the Centre to expedite formalities to set up the 4,000MW ultra mega power project in Banka and urge that subsidies to hydel power plants should also be extended to plants generating more than 5MW of power.