Ahead of polls, PM unveils 6000-cr gift for Assam

Tomorrow, he will inaugurate a project for development of the Upper Assam coal fields that belong to Coal India Ltd, worth Rs 3000 crore, which will ensure steady supply of quality coal to the NTPC power project that has to be completed within four years.

The bonanza came even as the Central project for a Rs 3600-crore mega gas cracker plant — the foundation stone of which was laid by PV Narasimha Rao in 1991—continues to remain a non-starter.

NTPC’s power project at Salakati incidentally will come up at the same site where a coal-based power project set up by the Assam State Electricity Board in the mid-1970s had become sick and defunct about 10 years ago.

Later in the day, at a press conference, Singh said the doors were still open for ULFA to hold talks with the Centre but added that such negotiations would be without any preconditions.

The Prime Minister also gave away the prestigious K K Handique national award for development of Sanskrit to Professor Ram Karan Sharma of Patna.

‘‘India is a major storehouse of power and knowledge, and to maintain this we have to make a proper fusion of tradition and modernity,’’ Singh said.

Singh also attended an exhibition organised to mark the completion of the Rajiv Gandhi Computer Literacy programme, a scheme under which 630 government higher secondary schools have been provided with 10 computers free of cost.