Karnataka to buy 1,000 Mw power till March '11

The Karnataka government will continue to buy 1,000 Mw of power till March 2011 at an average cost of Rs 350 crore per month. The government will consider buying extra power from April onwards depending on the demand situation, Shobha Karandlaje, minister for power, said.

Talking to reporters, here today, she said, “We bought around 200 Mw of extra power every day to meet the shortage during the Dasara season in addition to 1,000 Mw bought to plug the demand supply gaps. We will discontinue it once the Dasara season gets over by the end of this month.”

She said the power generation at the Raichur Thermal Power Station (RTPS) has returned to near normal situation for the last few days. Five out of seven units are functioning presently. In the recent months the power generation at RTPS was affected owing to technical and personnel problems, forcing the authorities to shut down one or the other unit at frequent intervals, she admitted.

The minister said the plant had been producing 1,000 Mw a day over the last one week Among the major projects, Karandlaje said the land acquisition for the 1,600 Mw thermal power plant proposed by Karnataka Power Corporation (KPCL) at Chhattisgarh is expected to complete within a month.

“Almost 90 per cent of the land acquisition has already been completed,” she added.