CAG suggests Tripura to become power sufficient

Agartala, Mar 24 (UNI) The latest report of Comptroller and Auditor General has suggested Tripura government to remove the constraints on inputs, need for power generation and utilisation of resources besides, increasing the efficiency in power generation process to make the state power sufficient.

The report stated that Tripura had generation capacity of 142.5 MW and effective available capacity of 105 MW against the peak demand of 160 MW, while observed that the available capacity of power generation was inadequate, which was expected to grow 396 MW by 2011-12.

"There were major generation constraints due to inadequate availability of gas and water required for thermal and hydro-power generations respectively small sizes of the plant and major shutdowns," report said adding despite huge gap in supply and peak demand the annual target fixed for generation correspond to a Plant Load Factor (PLF) of 56 to 64 per cent against the national average of about 74 per cent.

It however, underlined that the PLF at Rokhia Thermal Power Project was much below the national average and plant capacity utilisation was sub-optimal and more reduction in cost of generation was possible by increasing the generation of power.

There was insufficiency in the fuel management with lack of adequate supply in Rokhia and excess supply in Barmura thermal plant as well as the wastage of precious gas at huge cost due to flaring, the report observed and said the heat rate in the plants were much above the designed heat rate, implying wastage of gas and attendant monitory loss.

CAG criticised the authority for an abnormal delay in routine inspection and maintenance leading to high wear and tear and system break down; resultant outages led to loss of substantial generation capacity.

The state government had transferred the power department functions to newly set up corporate entity Tripura State Electricity Corporation Ltd (TSECL) in 2005 following assessment of the successful corporate future in the sector as well as to evade the recurring liabilities but CAG found it's performance below the desired level.

The report has also pointed out that even after six years of launching Accelerated Power Development Reform Programme (APDRP) the power generation sector continued to grapple with the issues like systemic inefficiencies, fuel constraints, defective planning and capacity constraints had put severe burden on state's generation, transmission and distribution loss.

"The distribution loss ranged between 19-40 percent in last two financial year and the corporation incurred loss because of shortfall in consumer metering was further compounded by purchase of sub-standard metres," CAG observed and added that very little was done to benefit from Information Technology development and other technical options available to reduce the technical and commercial loss of power in Tripura.

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