'Power shortage will not be severe in summer'

Nagpur, Mar 6: Seeking to put at rest fears of prolonged load-shedding in the state during the summer months this year, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh today said the power shortage would ease in the coming weeks with the generation expected to increase by 1,200 Mega Watt (MW) by next month and another 700 MW by the end of the year.

Mr Deshmukh told reporters here, the two new units of 250 MW each, at the thermal power stations at Paras and Parali were expected to go on steam by next month. This would give the state an additional 500 MW of electricity.

The Dabhol power plant would start generating an additional 700 MW by next month if sufficient Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) becomes available, Mr Deshmukh said. With this, the output from the plant, which was generating 700 MW now, would increase to 1,400 MW, he said.

Thus, the state would get an additional 1,200 MW from Paras, Parali and Dabhol, he pointed out.

''We are trying to achieve generation at the full capacity of 2,100 MW at Dabhol by December and making efforts to finalise the supply of CNG for the plant. The work of laying a pipeline for the supply of CNG is progressing fast and is expected to be completed by the end of March,'' the Chief Minister said.

Besides, a proposal of the National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd (NTPC) to set up a 1,000 MW power plant in Mouda in Nagpur district was expected to be cleared soon, he said.

Private players like the Tata Group and the Reliance would add 4,000 MW of generating capacity, Mr Deshmukh said adding that financial tie-ups had been finalised for the proposed capacity expansion of 7,500 MW of Maharashtra State Electricity Generation Company (Mahagenco). The power crisis in the state would ease by 2010, Mr Deshmukh reiterated.

The Chief Minister termed Maharashtra's comparison with states like Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh on the power front as 'unfair' because these states have separate feeders for agriculture and supply electricity for only about six hours to farmers. In contrast, Maharashtra has been the only state in the country to supply electricity round the clock to farmers even as it did not have separate feeders for agriculture, he pointed out.

This had aggravated the power shortage in the state, but the situation was expected to improve with the separation of feeders for agriculture and other consumers, which had been completed in ten districts, the Chief Minister said.

In reply to a question, Mr Deshmukh said the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly may convene a meeting of all group leaders in the House to discuss the issue of holding the Monsoon session instead of the Winter session in Nagpur.

The idea had already been mooted and was discussed at a meeting of the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) recently, but the Speaker wanted it to be examined in detail, he said.

On the party's defeat at last month's election in Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), he said. ''This is an issue related to the party, not to the government. You should put the question to the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Ccommittee (MPCC) chief Prabha Rau not to me. After all, the government and the party are separate entities,'' he quipped.

The Chief Minister said the issue of the land required for aviation giant Boeing's proposed maintenance, repairs and overhaul (MRO) hub in Nagpur would be resolved soon.

However, he refused to answer when the government would give the entire 80 acres of land demanded by Boeing for the project or if it would allot a lesser area.

Mr Deshmukh also parried a question on the possible merger of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) into the Congress. The NCP had already clarified its stand and the issue was closed, he added.

UNI