AGARTALA, June 9 (TIWN): After a minor shut down the Monarchak power plant installed in Tripura Sonamura Sub Division has been readied to switch its gas turbine from June 11, said Monarchak Project Head S R Biswas on Monday. Talking to TIWN on Monday evening he said, “Recently we have gone for a shutdown of the gas turbine as there were some pending works for plant, but from June 11 we have planned to open the gas turbine which was supposed to generate 65 MW.” But, some way or other the Monarchak power plant is undergoing some minor loss as the state govt. has been learnt to be reluctant buying power from the plant as the power cost is very high as compared to other plants including Palatana OTPC.A high level meeting was held recently taking up the issue of the power cost of the plant. The meeting was attended by TSECL CMD S K Ray and other officials chaired by Union Ministry of power.Both TSECL and NEEPCO Monarchak has been now looking forward to resolve the issue as NEEPCO had already spent a hefty amount to install the plant at Monarchak under Sonamura Sub Division.According to TSECL sources, it could not buy power at Rs. 4 per unit unit when the same power is available at Rs. 2.25/ 2.50.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.

However, to restrict any kind of loss to the ambitious project the Palatana Power plant is currently not taking any heavy load to the turbines of both Unit – I and unit – II, said the source. Here it may be noted that TSECL had inked power purchase agreement with both OTPC and NEEPCO to buy allocated power but this has now turned bleak with power shortage here.        

The project is being run by the North East Electrical Power Corporation (NEEPCO), a government undertaking. The Tripura unit of ONGC is supplying gas for the project.