AGARTALA, March 11 (TIWN): Gas turbine of the power plant situated at Monarchak under Sonamura Sub Division synchronized successfully on Tuesday with the generation of 9 MW of power on its initial stage. The turbine was made run precisely for 25 minutes. However the machine is now all set to take the load, said NEEPCO General Manager (GM) and Project Head S R Biswas. Talking to TIWN today NEEPCO GM said that on Tuesday the Monarchak 65 MW Gas turbine was synchronized generating at least 9 MW of power in its initial stage. He said that the system is now ready to take the full load. “We can start our further activities for the commercial generation of power from the gas based thermal power plant only if the ONGC commit us to give the full capacity gas,” Biswas said that on Tuesday the no problem was found with the gas as well as with the machine as of now.It may be recalled here that the ONGC had already charged gas into the 10 km pipeline from Khedabari - Sonamura GCS, to its Gas Metering Terminal at NEEPCO –Monarchak.

Adding to that he said “Though ONGC is working hard enough in this regard but today we will take up with the ONGC in regard of giving full capacity gas to the Monarchak gas based thermal power plant.”  At present the gas is not sufficient for the turbine to run in full load, Biswas told to TIWN. However apart from that the system is ready to generate its power very soon and it depends on the ONGC’s gas now, he said.

It is to be mentioned here that Tripura power minister Manik Dey, who visited the project site earlier this year, said the power generated in the Monarchak project would be purchased by the state government. "Because of cost escalation the cost of per unit of power will also go up and we will be left with no option but to hike power tariff," said Dey earlier. He said after the commencement of commercial production in Monarchak project this year the state would be in possession of altogether 366MW of power, of which 100MW would be sold to Bangladesh. "We are soon floating tenders for construction of high power 400KV transmission lines to facilitate the power sale," said Dey.

The foundation stone of the Monarchak project had been laid by former power minister of NDA regime (current railways minister) Suresh Prabhu in 2002 with an estimated project cost of Rs 623 crore. Besides, it is also mentionable here that the Northeast India's biggest and the first-of-its-kind 5MW capacity solar power plant in Tripura has begun commercial production from Monarchak under Sonamura sub division. The solar power plant was set up at a cost of Rs.40 crore. The entire power from the plant is being transmitted to the Tripura power grid now.