Agartala, Sept 10 (TIWN) After failing to commission its own power project, the ONGC’s repeated backtracked on its commitment to supply gas to NEEPCO’s second biggest thermal power project in northeast India’s Tripura put in an uncertain situation.

Conceived in 2000, the Rs. 950 crore power plant is being commissioned by the state-owned North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCO) at Monarchak, 70 km away of Tripura capital Agartala. Due to the delayed setting up of the combined cycle power project (in which water would also be used to generate power), being set up at an area of 200 acres, the corporation, under the Central government’s Power Ministry, has been incurring a loss of Rs 3.5 crore per month.

“Originally in 2000 the installed capacity of the Monarchak power project was 500 MW. But the capacity had revised to 280 MW in 2003-04 after ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation) reduced its gas allocation to one MSCMD (million standard cubic meter per day) from two MSCMD,” NEEPCO general Manager (electrical) S.R.Biswas said.

He said : “Unfortunately, again ONGC withdrew its allocation of gas to NEEPCO on the plea that the company is setting up of another giant power project (726 MW capacity) at south Tripura’s Palatana.”

“At the behest of the Tripura government, the ONGC has agreed to allocate gas at the rate of 0.5 MSCMD in 2008 forcing the NEEPCO to further scale down the installed capacity of the project to 101 MW,” said Biswas, who is head of the Monarchak project.

“Due to repeated backtracked of ONGC on its assurences to supply gas to the power plant, the NEEPCO over the years had to prepare DPR (Detail Project Report), obtained various clearances from the state and central governments several times and completd necessary formalities afresh many times.”

“Because of the repeated failure of promise of gas supply by ONGC and owing to subsequent technical problems, the commissioning time of the power plant has been rescheduled to January next year,” the official added.  

Meanwhile, 81 days after President Pranab Mukherjee dedicated ONGC’s first 726 MW mega power project in Tripura’s Palatana to the nation, commercial generation is yet to begin due to one after another technical problems.

The ONGC Tripura Power Company limited, a company floated to set up the Rs.10,000-crore plant at Palatana, 60 km from here, is yet to finalise the date on which commercial generation will start from the giant gas-based plant.

After the inauguration of the power project by President on June 21, technical hurdles were found in the 53-km gas pipelines, laid by the ONGC to supply gas to the power plant. Subsequently, few other technical difficulties had emerged delaying the commercial generation of power. 

The Palatana power project, expected to ease the power problem of the seven of the eight northeastern states – Tripura, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh – is the biggest gas based thermal power project of the northeast India. 

Designed by US-based General Electric Company, the Bharat Heavy Electric Limited (BHEL) has been supplying turbines to the 101 MW capacity gas based Monarchak power plant, which would produce 62 MW electricity through the gas turbine and 39 MW power by the steam turbine using water from the nearby Gomti river.

The then power minister of the Bharatiya Janata Party led NDA government Suresh Prabhu was laid the foundation stone of the Monarchak project in March, 2002.

Biswas said : “The NEEPCO would also set up a five MW capacity solar power plant within the Monarchak power complex at a cost of Rs 50 crore.”

“Newest designed turbines and other machineries have been commissioned in the power project to ensure zero emission of Nitrozen Oxide, which are very harmfull for the environment and human,” the official added. 

NEEPCO, which got the ‘Miniratna’ status in April this year, has an installed capacity of 1,130 MW, which is 47 percent of the total installed capacity of the northeastern region and had planned to add over 6,000 MW of power to its current capacity in the next few years.

Headquartered in Meghalaya capital Shillong, NEEPCO is also planning to generate at least 1,500 MW power from non-conventional sources of energy such as solar and wind in the next five years.