Bengal Seeks Arbiter To Settle Sebs Row With Ntpc

The West Bengal government has suggested that an arbiter be appointed to settle the dispute between the West Bengal State Electricity Board and the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC).

Chief Minister Jyoti Basu is expected to make a formal request for the appointment of an arbiter when he meets Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda later this week. The meeting is widely expected to resolve the dispute that has created imbalances between demand and supply of power in the state.

If the Prime Minister grants the request, the state may get a breather, as resolving such disputes in the past through an arbiter had been a time-consuming process.

 

West Bengal has been reeling under a huge peak-hour shortfall, due to NTPCs decision to cut power supply to force the agencies of the region to cough up dues. The peak shortfall in the state rose to 500 mw on Monday evening. Against the peak system demand of 888 mw in the Calcutta area, the shortfall stood at 170 mw, plunging large areas of city into darkness. The peak system demand in rest of the state was 1,262 mw and the supply fell short by 330 mw.

The situation was expected to improve yesterday with the re-commissioning of a 210-mw unit at the Kolaghat thermal power station. Two of the six units at Kolaghat had been lying idle for a few weeks. Yet another unit went out of commission on Monday.

The state government intends to stick to its stand that much of the outstanding payment of dues shown against the SEB is actually for the surplus energy supplied to Assam and Andhra Pradesh. Since these two states are not paying their dues, the SEB has been unable to foot NTPCs bills.

The SEB has told NTPC that it will not be responsible for such exports outside the eastern region since April 1996. NTPC was advised to send the bills for such exported energy directly to the beneficiaries. The corporation has accepted this in principle and is negotiating with Assam and Andhra for a direct supply agreement.

The SEB has objected to the tariff charged by NTPC for the power generated at the Kahelgaon power station. The tariff for any new station has to be notified by the ministry of power. In case of Kahelgaon, the ministry has recently fixed the tariff for two of the four units. Yet NTPC is charging an arbitrary rate, argues the SEB.

The supply of eastern regions surplus generation to Andhra and Assam was a necessity as the supply far outstripped the demand. Unless the power could be utilised, it would have also created a technical problem as, despite the exports, the eastern region power system had been suffering from a very high transmission frequency, resulting in breakdown of several generating units.

West Bengal will also seek to clarify the issue of the fixed charge component in the tariff structure.

The state has refused to pay the fixed charge for the entire power station when a few of the units remain idle.

The SEB has also objected to NTPCs practice of slapping a late payment surcharge. The board cannot recover the surcharge from its consumers.