Ntpc To Shut Plants In East

The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) will shut down all its three power stations in the eastern region from September 1, unless its consumers in the region open adequate letters of credit and prepare programmes for liquidation of their outstandings which stand at Rs 2600 crore.

The eastern region now has a peak demand of 6500 mw of which 1900 mw is met by NTPC.

The corporation will review the position after 15 days and decide its future course of action.

The unprecedented NTPC decision has already been communicated by its chairman, Rajinder Singh on August 14 to the union secretary for power, V K Pundit. Singh has not informed his consumers individually, but the shutdown threat has reached all eastern region power agencies through the Central Electricity Authority.

 

The NTPC power blackout will affect not only the eastern region but also several other states in other regions of the country. Exports of NTPC power outside the eastern region account for roughly 25 per cent of its generation.

Though most of the importing states outside the eastern region have opened adequate LCs, transmission of power to them will be impossible physically. The links between various regions arerouted through not only the centrally-owned Power Grid Corporation (PGCL), but also several state-owned transmission lines.

The eastern states cannot be expected to allow flow of power outside the rtegion when they will be shut out from the scope of NTPC power supply.

The NTPC decision will severely affect the operation of the PGCL too which thrives in inter-regional trading of power. It will now be left with distributing the energy generated at the Chukha hydroelectric station in Bhutan.

NTPC raises monthly energy bills of about Rs 200 crore while the quantum of letters of credit is about Rs 90 crore. NTPC demands that the consuming power agencies must open LCs fully matching their actual drawal of power.

NTPC now has three power plants in the east at Farakka, Kahelgaon and Talcher. Of these, Talcher has two units of 500 mw each. Farakka has two 500 mw sets and three 200 mw sets. There are four sets of 210 mw each at Kahelgaon. The total installed capacity from the 11 units is therefore 3440 mw.

Additionally, it has a 460 mw power station at Talcher which it had taken over from the Orissa SEB. The notice of shutdown applies to this station too.

The plants now generate an average 32 to 35 million units of energy a day. This ensures hardly 45 per cent capacity utilisation by the generationg plants. The peak generation schedule allowed to NTPC is 1900 mw while the off-peak generation level has been pegged at 1500 mw.

The shutdown will result in a peak shortfall of 1900 mw unless state owned power agencies step up their own output.

In his letter to Pundit, the NTPC chairman said that Bihar SEB alone owes it a sum of Rs 1200 crore followed by Rs 600 crore by the Weest Bengal SEB, Rs 450 crore by the Gridco of Orissa, Rs 300 crore by the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC), Rs 23 crore by Assam and Rs 8 crore by Sikkim. All amounts include the Late Payment Surcharge which constitutes about one third of the total outstandings.

Though the quantum of LC covering the full energy sale should be Rs 200 crore, it is actually less than half. Bihar has a LC of Rs 25 crore while Bengal's LC is for Rs 11 crore. Gridco's LC is for Rs 28 crore while DVC's LC is for Rs 10 crore. Assam has opened LC for Rs 12 crore. All these total Rs 86 crore only.