From Our Correspondent
AGARTALA: Concerned over the evacuation of power from Palatana power plant, the OTPC authority has decided to have a meeting with officials of the Northeast Transmission Company in Delhi next week.
Besides the NETC officers, officials from National Power Grid Corporation, representative of Meghalaya government will also attend the meeting scheduled to be held at Meghalaya House in national capital.
As of now, the high-power transmission line has been erected from Palatana to Silchar in Assasm which is far from the national grid situated at Bongaigoan.
The OTPC wants to take the Palatana power up from Silchar to Byrnihat in Meghaya’s Ri-Bhoi district so that electricity could be supplied to other NE states.
“In that case, we will seek help from the Meghalaya government to meet the target- erection of transmission line upto Byrnihat. As per the work-schedule, the NETC is confident of completing the work by December or January” said SK Dubey, the Managing Director of OTPC over telephone from Delhi on Thursday.
Dubey clarified that the erection of 665 km transmission line from Palatana to Bongaigoan (national grid) is not easy as it involves lot of challenging tasks.
Rejecting the apprehension of causing harm to turbines for running with limited pace, he said the OTPC would resume power generation at Palatana, 60 km from the capital, town from Thursday or Friday.
“We will gradually increase the power generation at Palatana and plans to generate 200 MW within next few days”, he said.
However, the state can’t absorb power more than 60 MW with its existing demand. Dubey further said the OTPC has already approached the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) to fix the tariff of the Palatana power. “The CERC will fix the tariff after conducting hearing of all concerned parties including OTPC”, he said rubbishing the speculation of the OTPC has proposed Rs. 2.75 per unit power tariff.
Asserting that the 726 MW Palatana power plant is absolutely a venture of OTPC, Dubey said, it doesn’t need permission or approval from anybody to run turbines. According to OTPC sources the estimated cost of the mega power project will be blow Rs. 4000 crore.