AGARTALA, April 20 (TIWN): Power crisis with the onset of the summer season along with scorching heat has turned life miserable in the state over past few days. Adding to the woes of common people in Tripura, power generation has also taken a bad shape in the state resulting frequents power cuts almost every day. Dark days hit Tripura as palatana has undergone complete shutdown from the previous day for maintenance. Talking to TIWN correspondent, NEEPCO high official on Tuesday said that Tripura will turn into power deficit state as Monarchak is running under complete shutdown since February and palatana has stop generation for its regular maintenance work. However, he further said that ONGC although has pumped gas to Monarchak but some technical faults in the turbine is delaying the power generation process.

He further said that BHEL official are arriving to check the faults and the authority is expecting that Monarchak will able to kick start generation from Tuesday night in full swing.

NEEPCO official further said that ONGC has assured that they will be able to provide gas to Monarchak during the maintenance period of Palatana and Monarchak can carry generation during those days to support Tripura with power generation or else Tripura will go under complete shutdown.

He further said that OTPC’s both the Units have gone shut down from Monday, April 18 for 10 days and during those days ONGC will be providing gas to Monarchak for power generation.  However, speaking about the sole generation of Monarchak, he said that nothing is finalised yet the day ONGC will start supplying gas Monarchak will start generation.  

The power crisis here in state seems to be a never ending issue. Either, due to lack of maintenance work or lack of gas supply, power generation is continuously hit and the common people are the ultimate sufferer.

It’s to be mentioned that Ministers words and administrative words do not match at all while gathering information for Plants but the actual sufferer are the common people, who are yet to see Tripura as a “Load-Shedding-Free” state, as promised by Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar.

The project’s foundation stone was laid in March 2002 by Suresh Prabhu, the then power minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government at the centre.

The environment-friendly project was originally slated to be commissioned in 2005. In 2007, the union power ministry abandoned it for a variety of reasons but work resumed in 2010 thanks to the Tripura government’s pressure.

Presently all the Power Plants are suffering due to various reasons: whether it would be for maintenance work or insufficient gas supplies. On the other hand Tripura is suffering due to load-shedding.