AGARTALA, Apr 2: Northeast Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCo) has asked Northeast Regional Load Dispatch Centre (NERLDC) to snap power supply to Tripura from April 5 midnight until further order due to non-payment of huge outstanding bills. Tripura has been emerged as one of the power surplus states in the country after commissioning of two units of 726MW capacity plant at Palatana in South Tripura. Accordingly, state government’s persuasion to central government allowed to sell 100 MW power to neighbouring Bangladesh and it was began only a week ago. With the suspension of power supply from seven operational NEEPCo projects, Tripura will suffer from about 80 MW shortages in peak hour, Tripura State Electricity Corporation Ltd (TSECL) officials said today. “As per bilateral agreement, even if Tripura dip into darkness there is no scope to suspend power supply to Bangladesh. Before getting into the agreement state government was advised to secure uninterrupted power supply for it’s customers but it was ignored,” alleged a top official of TSECL. However, NEEPCo officials said the state has been getting average 85 MW power as share from NEEPCo projects. But there is an outstanding of Rs 180.33 cr since May 2013 till last month. “The NEEPCo authority has issued March 31 as deadline for payment. On March 30, TSECL sought some more time for payment. But NEEPCo allowed them to pay at least Rs 40 cr by the deadline. TSECL paid only Rs 5 cr on Thursday that compelled us to go for discontinuation of supply from next Tuesday,” he said. However, he pointed out that about Rs 42 cr is added in the dues as late payment surcharge on TSECL. NEEPCo has been persuading for long time with the state government to clear the dues but somehow it was not happened yet. NEEPCo officials however, maintained that Tripura’s second biggest gas based combine cycle clean energy project of 101 MW capacity Monarchak project of NEEPCo has also calculating huge loss burden for not supplying of committed gas by ONGC. The project has faced trouble due to low pressure of gas only in a month of starting operation in January this year after 13 years of laying foundation at western bordering town Sonamura. The project worth of Rs 1000 crore was targeted to start generation within 3 years. Despite several attempts it was not possible and cost of project by now increased to at least six times. Monarchak project was conceived in 2000 with an initial installed capacity of 500 MW, the power plant’s capacity was reduced to 280 MW in 2003-04 after ONGC had reduced its gas allocation by half and now suspended totally. (UNI)
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