AGARTALA, March 22 (TIWN): The gas turbine of the power plant situated at Monarchak under Sonamura Sub Division facing cut off gas with the ONGC taken up an extension work of a portion of 150 meter inner pipeline. However with this the Monarchak gas based thermal power plant likely to start its test run by the end of March, said NEEPCO Project Head and General Manager S R Biswas today. Biswas earlier said that the gas transparency arrangement made by the ONGC to supply gas to the Monarchak, will not meet the gas turbine system at present.Talking to TIWN today Monarchak Project General Manager S R Biswas said that after the ONGC commission the control bulb on its gas pipeline the Monarchak gas based thermal power plant will start its test run with certain trial operation would also be carried. Biswas told to TIWN that at present the gas o the Monarchak plant is cut off as the ONGC has taken up the extension work of a portion of 150 meter inner pipeline. “The ONGC has said that it will take more 4 to 5 days to start supplying gas to the pipeline,” Biswas told. The extension work has begun since 3 days back.
Biswas also said that during his visit to the state NEEPCO CMD PC Pankaj urged the concerned NEEPCO officials to expedite the project work.

It is worthy to mention here that on March 11 the gas turbine of the power plant situated at Monarchak under Sonamura Sub Division synchronized its turbine successfully with the generation of 9 MW of power on its initial stage. The turbine was made run precisely for 25 minutes. Besides, 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.

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. 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.