UDAIPUR / PALATANA, August 20 (TIWN): As expected technicians and engineers have shutdown production from the from OTPCs Palatana plant. The complete shutdown begins from 11.30am. Earlier a fifteen members team of experts of USA based General Electric arrived Palatana from Mumbai this morning.Under their supervision the BHEL engineers started reducing the load from 9am and at 11.30am complete shutdown started. At 9.30am transmission has been disconnected from North Eastern Power Grid, Bongaingaon.At this situation when OTPC is bound to go for complete shut down for fifteen days, one would easily imagine how much the northeastern states, especially Tripura will be affected by power cuts. Tripura gets 92-95MW from North Eastern Load Dispatch Centre (NERLDC) as its share of OTPC.

As requested by North Eastern Regional Load Despatch Contre(NERLDC) OTPC has postponed the scheduled Major Inspection of the Gas Turbine of Unit-I upto 10am on Wednesday. As scheduled the Complete shut down was supposed to start from 00.00, hours on Wednesday. But on request from NERLDC , OPTC ultimately has postponed the Major Inspection. It is learnt that the experts from Philippines and India arriving Palatana by Wednesday and start the inspection. It is expected that within two years time the plant is expected to reach its full-fledged power generation capacity(726.6MW).    

The fifteen days long complete shutdown will continue up to 3rd September as OTPC has set the target to resume power generation from the midnight of 4th September. It means that during these fifteen days long compulsory Major Inspection Tripura is bound to face acute power crisis; already under severe shortage power supply due to the fall in internal power generation. At present Tripura's internal generation is around 60-65MW while the Peak Hour demand of the state is around 215-220MW. From the Central Pool state is getting around 40-45MW.