Power situation to improve after Dabhol-III unit

Mumbai: The power situation in the state should improve once the power unit of Dabhol becomes operational in January, Maharashtra Energy Minister Dileep Walse-Patil today said.

“The second unit of Dabhol started on October 30 this year and we hope the remaining unit start generating power by the end of January 2008 or beginning of February.

It will generate 700 Mw power and improve the situation in the state,” Patil told reporters after emerging from a seven-hour long meeting with all senior engineers of the three state-owned power companies.

Patil said the state is hopeful of resuming power generation from the third unit of Dabhol within the stipulated time.

“We had committed to start the first unit from October 2006 and we did, same for the second unit,” he said.

According to Walse-Patil the state was facing a power shortfall of 4,000-5,000 Mw per day.

To bridge this gap, the state had resorted to phased load-shedding ranging between three to 12 hours in parts of the state, except Mumbai which is powered by Tata Power and Reliance Energy.

“Power demand has increased by 2,000 Mw last year during which the state has provided domestic power connection to 5.42 lakh households, 41,357 industrial clusters low tension connections, while high tension connections were provided to 10,289 commercial units and 599 industrial units,” he said.

He said the state had made available 1,900 additional power in recent times which included, 250 Mw each from Parali and Paras power stations and 1,400 Mw from Dabhol.

The Power Minister said the state was making arrangements to get 1,000-1,500 Mw captive power from captive power generators who currently generate 3,000 MW power in the state.

“In addition to that, the state is trying to get electricity from states like Haryana and others on exchange basis,” he said.

“We are also trying to get 700 Mw from power traders within and outside the state,” Walse-Patil said.

He added that the government would launch a campaign to create awareness amongst the consumers regarding misuse of power.

He also asked the people not get disheartened during Diwali in the wake of ongoing power crisis saying that the government was trying to improve the situation.

“We are trying our best. Diwali should be very good. We can’t assure that there will be no load shedding, but things will improve,” the Power Minister said.