States should follow discipline while fetching power: Patil

Mumbai, Oct 16 (UNI) Maharashtra Power Minister Dilip Valse-Patil today admitted that the state was facing power deficit of over 3,500 megawatt, adding that the shortfall was due to overfetching of power from the central grid by the northern states.

Talking to reporters here, Mr Patil said, barring a couple of states including Maharashtra, not a single state follows the discipline marked by the central grid for not fetching more power of other state's share.

''We will take up this issue with the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) and the Central government,'' Mr Patil said.

He said the North Eastern states have a surplus power. But from August 22, the northern states had started overfetching power from Gorakhpur-Tala corridor, thereby reducing the national grid power supply by over 500 MW. There were also cases of under frequency trippings, he added.

The Minister said last night the demand was 14,480 MW while the shortfall was 3,655 MW, which has resulted in load shedding.

He said he had held a meeting with the officials of Tata Power Company and Reliance Energy, the main power suppliers for megapolis, and asked them not to have any power cuts in the country's financial capital. The shortfall of power supply for Mumbai was nearly 300 MW.

Mr Patil said the government would do all efforts not to have the power cut during the Ramzan and Diwali festivals by purchasing additional power and cited the example that the government was supplying power to Pune at the rate of Rs 11 per unit.

''We will take the power from other states to solve this load shedding problem,'' he added.

Mr Patil claimed that the state would get 1,400 MW from four projects, including Ratnagiri Gas Power Project. The projects such as Paras and Parali are going to generate 250 MW each by December, while the power generation from RGPP of 700 MW is expected to start in November, apart from the supply of 186 MW from Tarapur Atomic power project.

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