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Friday
Mar 09 2001
| Updated
0022 hrs IST
1352 EST
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Panel questions Bhadravati, Patalganga projects viability
Girish Kuber
MUMBAI
THE MADHAV Godbole review committee yesterday questioned the viability of two major power projects, Ispat group’s 1,082-MW Bhadravati project and Reliance’s 447-MW Patalganga project.
“In the light of Maharashtra State Electricity Board’s inability to pay Enron’s Dabhol Power Company’s burden, the demand for escrow cover from these two companies looks unrealistic and hence unaffordable for the state,” the committee is reported to have observed.
Since, the Reliance project is proposed to be run on imported naphtha, MSEB officials had said that power purchased from it could prove to be as costly as that from DPC. Ispat’s project, which is one of the fast-track projects, has been hanging fire for over eight years.
“Can you go ahead with the project without the escrow cover”, the committee is believed to have asked the representatives of Ispat and Reliance, to which the reply was negative.
Ispat officials confirmed the development and said that in the absence of escrow cover, MSEB should be asked to provide some alternate security mechanism.
Meanwhile, the committee’s suggestion that licensees like BSES and TEC buy the power from Enron and sell it to their customers has been turned down by these power utilities.
As reported by ET on Wednesday, the committeehad suggested a proposal that in order to resolve DPC’s payment issue, these utilities could buy power from it and ensure supply to the entire city. Both these companies appear to have turned down the proposal.
“Both TPC and BSES are in no mood to bail out the ailing MSEB by purchasing power from DPC,” highly placed government sources told ET.
“TEC already has adequate generation capacity and two per cent excess power which is around Rs 2.80 per unit. Why should we buy DPC’s costly power,” TEC MD Adi Engineer said.
According to BSES technical director S S Dua, company’s CMD RV Shahi had made it clear to the Godbole committee that BSES was not ready to purchase power from DPC.
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