Power Ministry to allot 177 MW from NTPC, Jhajjar to AP.

The Union Ministry of Power has agreed to allocate 177 MW of power from NTPC's Jajjar power plant in Haryana to Andhra Pradesh. The power is expected to flow to the State grid within two or three days.

This move comes in the wake of persistent requests made by Andhra Pradesh Government to the Centre seeking its support in bridging the current demand-supply mismatch in the State. The State utilities could supply 129 million units today as against the demand of 143 MU, leaving a deficit of 14 MU as against a shortfall of 24 MU recently.

According to a statement, the Chief Minister, N Chandrababu Naidu, has directed officials of Energy Department and power utilities to work out modalities for securing the allocated power at the earliest.

Consequent to the request made by the Chief Minister during his recent visit to Delhi, the Ministry of Coal has issued instructions to the Western Coalfields Limited, Maharashtra to enter into Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the AP Genco and the State Government for allocation of 4 lakh tonnes of coal to AP thermal power projects to optimise coal stock. This is expected to pave way for running thermal units at higher plant load factor (PLF).

The Chief Minister directed officials to further explore all possibilities for procuring power in addition to operating the existing power plants to the optimum level to meet the requirements and overcome power shortage.

Ajay Jain, Principal Secretary, Energy and K. Vijayanand, MD, AP Genco have been liaisoning with the Railway Ministry for arranging the sufficient number of rakes/wagons for smooth transportation of coal to the power stations.

AP Transco is in talks with the Power Ministry for procuring the additional power of Central Generating Stations of 65 MW. This was allocated after correction of the ratio of share between the two states of Telangana and AP.


HBL