Maharashtra's power situation improves

A clutch of Coimbatore-based textile mills want to shift to Maharashtra, according to sources. Reason: Acute power shortage in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra's reputation for supplying power 24x7 to the industry. "Maharashtra is 82 per cent load-shedding free. MahaVitaran (state-run Maharashtra Electricity Distribution Company) is carrying out load shedding in the regions with high distribution losses and long pending arrears," Deputy Chief Minister and Energy Minister Ajit Pawar told Business Standard.

Pawar added the deficit in 2005 was 18 per cent, which had been brought down to three per cent. This achievement is notwithstanding closure of Dabhol power project and a few MahaGenco (Maharashtra State Power Generation Co. Limited) projects for want of fuel. The three per cent deficit at present is not because of non-availability of power, but because of the non-paying culture of the consumers, said an official. Despite peak demand crossing 15,073 Mw on March 25, MahaVitaran has been able to manage well. Agricultural consumers are provided eight hours of power supply during the day for four days and 10 hours' power during the night for three days.

According to a MahaVitaran official, the demand is met through power purchases from MahaGenco, independent power producers, power exchanges and through bilateral contracts.

"MahaVitaran recently drew 300 Mw from the market at Rs 2.90 per unit. Had Dabhol power project and few projects of MahaGenco not closed, MahaVitaran would have surplus power to sell in the market," the official noted. He also rubbished reports that MahaVitaran was purchasing costly power from the independent power producers (IPPs) when MahaGenco had to back down some of its power plants.

Instead, the official said, MahaVitaran's move to enter into contracts with IPPs is paying off, because the closure of Dabhol and a few projects run by MahaGenco had not resulted in widening the gap between demand and supply.

Out of the total demand of the state, 25 per cent is of the agricultural sector, which is in the average range of 4,000-4,500 Mw, said the MahaVitaran official.

"Mahavitaran implemented the Single Phasing Scheme and Separate Gaothan Feeder Scheme for 31,000 agriculture-dominated villages of the total 41,000 villages of Maharashtra. Because of this, we could stagger or monitor the demand of agricultural sector to about 2,500-3,000 Mw.

Due to these initiatives, the demand which was generally within the range of 17,000-17,500 Mw reduced to 14,000-14,700 Mw," said the official.