Telangana to get 1,000 Mw from Chhattisgarh

The Telangana government has entered into a memorandum of understanding with the government of Chhattisgarh on Monday for purchase of 1,000 Mw of power.

The long-term power purchase agreement in this regard will be signed shortly by the Chhattisgarh Power Trading Corporation and the Generation of Corporation of Telangana State (TSGenco) at a price to be fixed by the Telangana State Electricity Regulatory Commission.

According to an official press release, Chhattisgarh chief minister, Raman Singh, had responded positively to the request of his Telangana counterpart, K Chandrasekhar Rao, for supply of an additional 1,000 Mw of power.

Pending laying of transmission lines by the Power Grid Corporation (PGC), the Telangana government is exploring the possibility of securing power from the transmission network passing through Maharashtra to meet its immediate needs.

The press release stated the PGC was already preparing to lay transmission lines from Chhattisgarh and the tendering process was expected to be completed in a month.

Meanwhile, state irrigation minister, T Harish Rao, met Union water resources minister, Uma Bharati, in New Delhi and complained against the order of the Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) restraining TSGenco from utilisation of water from the Srisailam reservoir for power generation after November 2.

Rao had reportedly explained to the Union minister that the order given by the KRMB was beyond its purview and appealed to her to do justice to the Telangana state. According to the reports reaching here, Bharati had given a green signal to Telangana to continue hydel power generation keeping in view the interest of farmers, who were yet to harvest their standing crops during this kharif season.

The Andhra Pradesh government objected to generation of power by TSGenco at the Srisailam reservoir stating the latter was violating different government orders (issued prior to bifurcation of the state) restraining utilisation of water below a certain storage level for power generation.

On the other hand, the Telangana government maintained it was in dire need of power for pumping ground water to sustain the standing crops and hence was operating the Srisailam Left Bank Power House.

Following meetings with the representatives of both the governments last week, the KRMB issued an order restraining TSGenco to generate power only up to November 2 and also not to utilise more than three TMC of water for the purpose.