From Our Correspondent
AGARTALA: Setting aside all speculations, Tripura Power Minister Manik Dey on Monday said the commercial production of Patalana’s first unit would kick start in mid June.
Both OTPC and BHEL have been working hard to start commercial running of first unit of 726 MW power project at Gumati district’s Palatana area.
While replying to a notice, the Minister informed the Assembly power generation at Palatana was started in October on experimental basis last year after completion of project’s works. However, it got stalled on February 15, 2013 after turbines developed technical snag.
To remove the faults, a team of BHEL’s specialist engineers has been working round the clock on the project.
“Repair works have already been done by the BHEL engineers and efforts are on to undertake trial run of first unit in next month and this process will continue for five months,” he said.
If everything falls in right place, a team of Central Electricity Authority (CEA) will examine the first unit and then will issue a certificate paving the way for commercial running of mega power project, he said.
Dey said Chief Minister Manik Sarkar has had a review meeting with chiefs of ONGC and BHEL on April 9 where it was decided to start commercial running by second week of June after conducting necessary repair works.
He further said the 400 KV transmission line from Palatana to Byrnihat (Meghalaya) has been completed to evacuate the power to outside the state. And work is in full swing to erect transmission line upto National Power Grid at Bongaigoan.
Besides Tripura, six North-eastern states- Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh will get power from the Palatana power project.