Electricity

The move comes as conflicts between power generation companies and local needs for the same power have increased over the years.

"Our PSUs (public sector units) take land, water and what do we (government) give back in return?" asks Jairam Ramesh, minister of state for power and commerce. "We will introduce this as a policy for all our PSUs. The first right of the unallocated quota from a power project should come to the nearby area. The government has already identified NTPC Ltd's power project at Kahalgaon in Bihar as a test project where the PSU will distribute power to the residents within a 10-15km radius. NTPC is very happy as it will improve their relationship with the state government."

This decision also means that NTPC will, for the first time, get into distribution.
Mint had reported on 24 January that, following a citizens' agitation in Bihar and the state government's promise to look at the privatization of the state's electricity utilities, NTPC was showing interest in managing power distribution as well.

NTPC has two plants in Bihar but these are not owned by the state government and their output can only be accessed indirectly by Bihar from a central pool. Bihar has a power generation capacity of 584MW, compared with a demand of around 1,400MW. The deficit is made up by accessing the central pool.

Raising the matter during Zero Hour, JD(U) member Rajiv Ranjan Singh said there has been no power production in the state for the past nine years as two thermal power plants had been closed down, resulting in Bihar becoming "totally dependent" on the Central power pool.

While the Centre was to supply over 1300 MW of power, Bihar was currently getting only 850-900 MW, he said, adding the state government had petitioned the Centre to enhance supply from the present level.

"If that is not possible, the Centre should at least provide 1300 MW," he said.

Singh was supported by his party colleague, Prabhunath Singh, as well as Devendra Prasad Yadav (RJD) and other members from his party. Railway Minister Lalu Prasad was also present in the House at that time.

The decision follows the Union Minister of State for Energy Jairam Ramesh's two hour-long meeting with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar at the latter's residence with the proposal from the NTPC.

The chief minister said the state government agreed to the NTPC's proposal in the interest of the people of Kahalgaon. Official sources said the NTPC proposed to cover areas within a radius of 10-12 kms from the plant in the wake of the recent unrest in Kahalgaon.

It needs to be mentioned that several people lost their lives in police firing at Kahalgaon on January 19 last when demonstrators seeking uninterrupted power supply from the NTPC staged sit-in at the gate of the plant. The following day police carried crack down on the local people killing one and injuring another. The police action sparked off protests by opposition parties in Bihar which demanded resignation of chief minister.

Meanwhile, Jairam Ramesh directed the authorities to start preparations for supplying power to Kahalgaon without delay. He also said that the construction of the NTPC plant at Barh was moving at a slow pace due to some problems of the Russian company, which was assigned the job. However, it would soon be accelerated.

This is the company's second such project and confirms its diversification into power generation and trading activity. Kribhco's first power JV, a 1,000 mw project in association with the Chhattisgarh State Electricity Board (CSEB), is on track. As in the case of the Chhattisgarh project, Kribhco will hold 51 per cent in the second project also.

Along with Iffco, Kribhco is one of the country's major profit-making fertiliser manufacturer. "All that I can say is that we are making efforts to move into power trading as part of our diversification plans. While the Chhattisgarh plans are on track, the Bihar effort is still at a nebulous stage. We have shown interest and the Bihar government is ready to support us," Kribhco Managing Director B D Sinha said.

Around 1,000 acres will be required for setting up the power plant. Kribhco is also moving into other businesses such as setting up a jetty at its Hazira power plant and has entered into a tie-up with the Railways for container services.

Sinha said, "These are part of our future expansion and diversification programmes across the country."

The projected will be funded mainly through loans from banks and financial institutions. Formation of a special purpose vehicle could also be on the cards for the Bihar venture. Kribhco authorities have also initiated dialogues with Power Trading Corporation for their foray into power selling.

The orders, for four units of 250 MW each in the eastern state of Bihar, have been placed by Bhartiya Rail Bijlee Co Ltd, a joint venture of NTPC and state-run Indian Railways.

BHEL plans to boost its manufacturing capacity to 15,000 megawatts in the next two years from 10,000 megawatts.

Shares of the company gained Rs 19, or 1%, to settle at Rs 1815. The total volume of shares traded was 171,671 at the BSE. (Tuesday)

In a communication to the BSE on Monday, NTPC said the second unit of 500 MW of Kahalgaon Thermal Power Project - Stage II of NTPC Ltd located in Bihar has been successfully test synchronised on March 16.

With the commissioning of this unit, the commissioned capacity of Kahalgaon project is 1,840 MW and the company's total installed capacity stands at 29,144 MW.

The board of directors of the power company, which proposes to add over 22,000 mw in the 11th Plan period, gave nod for the investment proposal including interest during construction (IDC) and financing charges of Rs 1,050.60 crore and a working capital margin of Rs 132 crore for the 3x660 mw project. The investment plan has been appraised by SBI Capital

Markets Ltd. According to NTPC sources, "The company is in the process of awarding some plant equipment to Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd for Barh stage II." The power company has projected additional coal requirement of 7.72 mt per annum for Barh stage II considering plant load factor (PLF) of 90% and gross caloric value of 3,300 kcal/kg. The increased coal requirement will be met from Chatti Bariatu and Kerandhari captive coal blocks of North Karanpura coalfields allotted to NTPC.

Additional water requirement will be met from river Ganges, for which commitment of 80 cusecs is available from the Bihar government. Moreover, the expansion project has all the statutory clearances in place.

According to sources, the project will be set up as an inter-regional station to supply to the northern and western regions, besides Bihar in the eastern Region. The first unit is expected to be commissioned within 51 months from the placement of main plant order, and the subsequent units would be made operational at an interval of 10 months after the first unit.

Sources said that Barh STPP was originally conceived as a coal-based super thermal power project, having an ultimate capacity of 2,000 mw (4x500 MW), for which land was identified for plant, township and ash disposal areas. The unit configuration of the project was subsequently revised to 3x660 mw, with a capacity of 1,980 mw.

Accordingly, first stage site clearance was obtained from the ministry of environment and forests. The project is expected to be commissioned during the 11th Plan period.

"It is true that Bihar is facing shortage of power. Against the requirement of about 1900 MW during peak hour, the state, which is heavily dependent on availability of power from the central pool, is receiving hardly between 680 MW to 750 MW on an average per day despite the allocation of 1169MW", state Energy Minister Vijendra Prasad Yadav told the assembly.

The state had already urged the Centre to provide additional 300 MW from the non-allocated quota for which an all-party delegation had gone to New Delhi in February and met the Union Power Minister. "But we are yet to receive a favourable response," Yadav said replying to a 3-hour debate on budgetary demands of his department for 2008-09.

Private investors have proposed to spend over Rs 50,000 crore for the measures to face the power crisis, he said adding the budgetary demand for the state for next fiscal is about Rs 1881 crore.

Meanwhile, the state government was expecting 222 MW from Kahalgaon super thermal power station (stage-2) and 55 MW from Teesta hydel power project (stage-5).

Both projects are likely to start generation soon, he said.

Last week, as the residents were holding protests demanding power, the police had opened fire, leading to three deaths. Nitish admitted that the police and other district officials were wrong in permitting the firing, and said he had instituted a judicial probe into it.

Talking to reporters at his weekly `Janata Ka Darbar', the Chief Minister said that every corporate house should fulfill some social responsibility, and urged the Centre to enact a law to ensure this.

"Residents of Kahalgaon had given their land for the NTPC generation unit. Today they are even encountering pollution. Why should they not get electricity? It is their right," he said.

Nitish added that as the locals were demanding electricity from NTPC authorities, officials should have communicated the same to Patna. "The state government would have taken up the matter with the Centre."

Power shortage in Bihar has led to violent protests with angry mob ransacking local electricity offices in some districts.

At present, on an average the state needs 1500-1800 MW of power and the allocation from the Centre is only 1170 MW.

This dropped to 745 MW on Thursday.

The NTPC, Kahalgaon, has pointed out that due to suspension of the existing Bhagalpur-Kahalgaon rail link, supply of coal has been badly hit and if this situation continues, it will suspend generation of power in one of its units.

The Nabinagar power plant, to be built at a cost of Rs. 5352 crore, will be of 1000 MW capacity and 10 per cent of power from this plant is earmarked to other users. The equity portions of NTPC and Indian Railways will be 74 per cent (Rs. 1188 crore) and 26 per cent (Rs. 417 crore) respectively. Indian Railways is thereby expected to save approximately Rs. 600 crore per annum. The electricity from this plant will be utilized by Indian Railways for running electric trains in Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhatisgarh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh in the eastern and western regions of the country. The Minster said that setting up of such joint venture power project plants will benefit the nation as it would mean net addition to the generation capacity.

"By 2012, Bihar will most likely become self-sufficient in power guaranteeing a production of nearly 3,000 megawatt but this is a long, arduous process thanks to the ineptness of the previous government in Bihar and the Central government's apathy to bring development in the state," Kumar said.

The Chief Minister also asked the NTPC to begin work on upgrading and expanding the existing Kanti Thermal Power station in Muzaffarpur while vowing to provide all required assistance to complete the project.

Production at Kanti plant, where work is going on a war-footing scale, is expected to begin from the next month, NTPC managing director T. Shankarlingham said.

Energy Minister Vijendra Prasad Yadav was also present at the meeting.

"By 2012, Bihar will most likely become self-sufficient in power guaranteeing a production of nearly 3,000 megawatt but this is a long, arduous process thanks to the ineptness of the previous government in Bihar and the Central government's apathy to bring development in the state," Kumar said.

The Chief Minister also asked the NTPC to begin work on upgrading and expanding the existing Kanti Thermal Power station in Muzaffarpur while vowing to provide all required assistance to complete the project.

Production at Kanti plant, where work is going on a war-footing scale, is expected to begin from the next month, NTPC managing director T. Shankarlingham said.

Energy Minister Vijendra Prasad Yadav was also present at the meeting.

The agreement was signed between the JAS Infrastructure Private Ltd chief executive officer, Arun Gupta, and the secretary of the BSEB, A K Singh. The chairman of the BSEB, Swapan Mukherjee, was also present on the occasion. Only on October 14 a similar MoU was signed with the NTPC for thermal power plant at Nabinagar in Aurangabad district.

This is the second MoU the BSEB has signed with a private firm. The first such agreement was signed with Vikas Metals sometimes back.

For stage-I of the project, NTPC Ltd had awarded the contract worth Rs.19 billion to Russia-based power equipment supplier, Technopromoexport.

"BHEL is the only vendor that has bid for supply of boiler package for Barh-II. We plan to start negotiations with BHEL soon to arrive at an acceptable contract price," a senior NTPC official told IANS.

Dagmara is located about 30 kilometers at the foothill of Kosi Barrage and is capable of producing 46 MW of power, state Energy Minister Vijendra Yadav who called the agreement 'historic from Bihar's perspective', said after the meeting.

The agreement was signed by the chief engineer of the Bihar Hydro-electric Power Corporation Jawahar Lal and the WAPCOS chief engineer M. M. Verma.

A detailed project report is to be submitted by the WAPCOS within a year and the project is expected to be completed by the end of 2010, Yadav said.

Dozens of city localities including Bank Road, Muradpur, Sabzi Bagh, Bakerganj, Mahendru, university area, Sultanganj, Padri Ki Haveli, Khajekalan, City Chowk, Gaighat, Paschim Darwaza, parts of Kankerbagh and Rajendra Nagar, Nala Road, Macchua Toli and Saidpur went without power for nearly seven hours.

The power supply was also disrupted in S K Nagar, Danapur and Hardinge Road during early hours on Tuesday, Patna Electric Supply Undertaking (Pesu) (West) chief S K P Singh told TOI that power supply in Danapur was disrupted for nearly three hours on Tuesday due to felling of the electric wire on Bailey Road. Due to the puncture of three power insulators in S K Nagar, power supply was disrupted for couple of hours. Now, there are no reports of any breakdown from Patna (west), Singh claimed.

Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) on Tuesday drew 881 MW from the Central sector in which Pesu has been given adequate power supply. But due to continuous rains, the demand for power has suddenly dropped.

"We put a technocrat instead of a career bureaucrat in the electricity board hoping that it would improve the power situation in Bihar but obviously it has not changed a thing in the state," Kumar said.

With the Energy Minister also by the his side, Kumar directed the Board chairperson Swapan Mukherjee and Energy Secretary Rajesh Gupta to absolutely make sure there was no power interruption during the entire Puja and Ramjan period and alternative plans were in place to deal with any contingency.

The Chief Minister also expressed his frustration with the Kanti and Barauni Thermal Power plants saying the NTPC and BHEL were not of much help either by their slow pace in upgrading these two plants adding he would meet with the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the first week of October and demand 200 MW of additional energy to meet Bihar's needs.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar held a meeting to assess the power situation here last evening, wherein the matter relating to alleged inordinate delay being made by these central agencies in completing work on the two state units came up for discussion.

The meeting was attended by state Energy Minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav, Deputy Chairman of the State Planning Board N K Singh, Bihar State Electricity Board (BSEB) Chairman Swapan Mukherjee and state Energy Secretary Rajesh Gupta.

Kumar was annoyed with the power scenario and enquired about the progress of ongoing renovation and maintenance work of Barauni and Kanti thermal power plants, an official spokesperson said today.

Kumar said he would meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the first week of October over Bihar's power problems, while state Chief Secretary A K Choudhary would meet the Union Power Secretary Anil Razdan (rpt) Anil Razdan on September 28.

When contacted, Yadav said "if the central agencies assigned the job of completing the restoration work of one unit each of Barauni and Kanti by March-April next, cannot do the work, they should tell us in clear terms".

"We will then explore other available options and get the work done", he added.