AGARTALA, May 31 (TIWN): What makes the growth story more interesting is that TSECL(Tripura State Electricity Corporation) has failed to bring the Agartala city and the rural Tripura under the coverage of so called “Load-shedding free state”.Tripura run Tripura State Electricity Corporation Ltd. (TSECL) Chairman cum Managing Director (CMD) S K Roy on Saturday expressing displeasure over the high power cost of NEEPCO Monarchak said, “TSECL cannot afford buying power from Monarchak at a very high cost.” Run by North East Electrical Power Corporation (NEEPCO), government undertaking gas based power plant at Monarchak at Tripura Sonamura Sub division is currently facing a loss with its power production as the government of Tripura run Tripura State Electricity Corporation Ltd. (TSECL) is reluctant to buy power from the plant due to high power cost as compared to other power plants in Tripura.Talking to TIWN on Saturday Roy said, “As compared to the power cot of other power plants in Tripura the NEEPCO Monarchak power cost is high.” Adding to that he said it is not possible for the state govt. here to buy power from the plant with a very high cost.Roy recently attended a meeting held at New Delhi called by Union Minister of power taking up the issue of the Monarchak power cost. Asked about it Rayon Saturday told to TIWN that no solution has been brought by the meeting held.

Asked about the power cost of Monarchak power plant, the official said that at present the cost is Rs. 4 per unit of power. Adding to that he said the only reason behind not buying power from Monarchak is because of high power cost.

Later Roy had highly expressed displeasure over the high power cost of NEEPCO Monarchak. But it is to be mentioned here that according to the official source TSECL is also reluctant to buy power from Palatana OTPC power plant. Earlier TSECL official said, OTPC often trips their turbines of both the unit following which the plant is unable to generate sufficient power.

The real entity for the state yet today facing power crisis has come to limelight with the TSECL is also allegedly reluctant to buy additional power from the Palatana power plant, as a result power shortage has hit the state in summer's peak season. According to the highly placed source of the power department TSECL some way or other refused to buy power from the plant more than 70 MW.

Besides, The NEEPCO Monarchak Power plant is currently generating 20 to 40 MW of power depending on the demand by the consumers. But according to the official the plant is suffering from a minor loss as TSECL refused to take power from it.