KCR defends establishment of small thermal projects

Hyderabad:  Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Friday refuted the allegations on the establishment of four new thermal projec...

Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Friday refuted the allegations on the establishment of four new thermal projects with 270 MW installed capacity each jointly by the State government and Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) in the State.

• Says the projects with capacity of 270MW will help in crisis time
• Power experts rule out the viability of projects 
• Cite increased cost of maintenance and scarcity of coal as major issues

A file photo of a thermal power project

Clarifying the doubts raised by the Congress leader N Uttam Kumar Reddy during the debate on Appropriation Bill 2014-15 in the Assembly, he said though the power projects with 270 MW capacity were not viable in terms of coal and technology usage and the financial and additional manpower burden, the government felt that such projects would be useful during the crisis time.  

Apart from establishing the two projects with 600 MW each, the 270 MW installed capacity projects would also help the State to meet the power demand. After consulting the experts, government gave a nod to BHEL. KCR said the BHEL also informed that the machines to set up the projects were already in store and all the projects would be completed in two years.  If the company fails, it would pay fine for the delay as per the Memorandum of Understanding entered recently. 

The projects are being taken up at Manuguru in Khammam district. The project cost could be about Rs 11, 000 crore, out of which BHEL’s portion would be approximately Rs 9, 000 crore.

Stating that it was also proposed to generate 6,000 MW of power by TS Genco in the next four years, the Chief Minister said the other thermal projects taken up by Singareni Collieries at Jaipur in Adilabad districts would be completed by 2015 end. He held the AP government responsible for the present power crisis in the State as the neighbouring State denied its quota in the projects established in Andhra Pradesh.

While, power experts maintained that in the recent years, the establishment of thermal power projects with an installed capacity of 270 MW was stopped in view of the difficulties in sustaining the project for long time. The viability of such projects was ruled out in these days following the increased cost of the maintenance and scarcity of coal. Technically, the establishment of the project was also cost and manpower intensive.