The Maharashtra government intervened with GAIL India to organise gas supply till end-June for one unit of Tata Power’s Trombay plant. The unit had stopped production for want of fuel.
The compulsion was the state’s own need for more power. The state government’s MahaVitaran — the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Co — will take all the output from Trombay, officially of 150-Mw capacity, but now able to generate only 100 Mw, as it is an old unit.
GAIL has already begun the supply; the arrangement is for 0.8 million standard cubic metres per day of gas. A government official said: “The entire power is being procured by MahaVitaran at Rs 5 per unit, competitive when compared to the Rs 9 a unit in the open market. This is to help MahaVitaran tackle the rising power deficit, of 4,500-5,000 Mw. MahaVitaran is also buying traded power at Rs 5-8 per unit.”
The official said chief minister Ashok Chavan and power minister Ajit Pawar had intervened to arrange the supply from GAIL India.
Tata Power’s installed capacity in Maharashtra is 1,877 Mw, comprising 1,430 Mw of coal, oil and gas-based units and another 447 Mw of hydro power.
