WCA May 2012

India

bigstockphoto.com – photographers – Angelika Smile and Pokaz

State’s call for power to ease electric crisis

She said major power projects to be executed by central PSUs such as BHEL, NLC and NTPC were ‘inordinately delayed’ and to offset a part of the deficit, the state government was trying to procure power from other states. “However, non-availability of a transmission corridor has deprived Tamil Nadu of receiving the contracted power. To cite some examples, Tamil Nadu has contracted a capacity of 500MW from Gujarat. Of this, only 203MW could be transmitted. The 727MW of night power contracted from the Dadri power station (Uttar Pradesh) of NTPC was also curtailed.” The state contracted around 1,750MW of power for March this year, she said.

FACED with acute power shortage in the state, the Tamil Nadu chief minister, Ms J Jayalalithaa, has requested the Prime Minister, Mr Manmohan Singh’s intervention for allocating 1,000MW of additional power to ease the crisis. Ms Jayalalithaa said she had previously requested 1,000MW of additional power for the state for a period of one year, until the central power utilities, which supply power to Tamil Nadu, commenced production. Of this, only 100MW was recently allotted, she said. “This inaction and non-responsiveness to our repeated requests during this unprecedented power crisis only shows callousness and indifference on the part of the centre,” she said in her letter to Mr Singh.

23

Wire & Cable ASIA – May/June 2012