AGARTALA, August 4 (TIWN): Powered by Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) Tripura asset the North East Tripura's 100 MW gas-based Monarchak power plant in West Tripura district, about 50 km from here; has undergone complete shutdown yet again due to the gas cut, said official source. “We had to shut down the plant again as ONGC had failed to supply required gas for the plant causing a heavy damage to the plant,” he said. ONGC was supposed to resume its gas supply on July 26 but failed to do so as the ONGC could not discover the possibility of gas from its well. The official said, “Also the ONGC authority failed to ensure the gas supply in future and had not brought any commitment so far.” At present the Monarchak power plant is suffering from a hefty loss as the plant has undergone complete shutdown.

On July 11 the ONGC held a meeting with the plant management committee here in Agartala taking up the issue of the crisis of gas. ONGC had assured that by mid August they would try to resume its gas supply after recovering their old gas wells, said source. 

He said that as per the agreement, the ONGC is supposed to supply 5 MMSCM per day gas to the plant but the supply has been stopped for the past few days.

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

Here it may be noted that TSECL had already inked power purchase agreement with both OTPC and NEEPCO to buy allocated power but this has now turned bleak with power shortage here.

Besides, according to the source of ONGC it has been learnt that the ONGC had been trying hard enough to resume its gas supply to the plant. The source said that the ONGC is eyeing forward to recover the old wells and dispatch the gas from those.

Earlier the TSECL had a tug of war with the NEEPCO as the body was reluctant to purchase power from Monarchak due to high power cost as compared to Palatana OTPC plant. At present the cost is Rs. 4 per unit of power, which has led its power to be futile for the TSECL, a state government undertaking body.