"I am confident we have been able to push it through," he told The Financial Express late on Monday evening, after he met finance minister Yahswant Sinha to find a solution to the controversy.

Present in the meeting were high-level officials of the finance and power ministries.

The power ministry had vehemently protested against the finance ministry's decision to peg the concessional project import duty of zero per cent on thermal power projects of a capacity of 1,500mw and above.

For hydel projects, the threshold has been kept at 500mw. The power ministry had pushed for a limit of 1,000mw and above for thermal stations and 250mw and more for hydel plants. It had also proposed that public-sector projects should be allowed to importat zero duty.

Kumaramangalam had lobbied hard to get threshold lowered. The power ministry had earlier though of moving a cabinet note independently, seeking a lowering of the limit. Finally, since a finance ministry nod is required for for duty concessions, he decided to sort out the issue with a one-to-one meeting with the finance minister.

In the hour-long meeting with Sinha on Monday, Kumarangalam is reported to have argued that the levy of duty on mega power plants would be counter-productive. Ultimately, he claimed, it would be the state electricity boards and the consumers who would suffer as promoters would tend to pass on the higher import duty through higher tariff rates.

Kumaramangalam, however, said that the threshold on hydel projects was unlikely to be lowered. Nor would public-sector projects be given the concession, unless they fell within the capacity norm. Finance ministry officials were tightlipped about the what transpired in the meeting.