Port Blair, July 11: Putting blame again on Independent Power Producers, the Administration today said that the Power shortage in South Andaman region is due to fresh collapse of 5 MW Unit of SPCL and also failure of two other IPPs to suppy sufficient amount of power.
“Due to the frequent power cuts in Port Blair, the General Public has been put to a lot of inconvenience, and it is important to inform the reasons for this shortfall and share its status as of now,” Mr. Jalaj Srivastava, Principal Secretary (Power) said in a pres release today.
He said that the Department has already arranged for additional continuous 10 MW supply through M/s Sudhir Reddy Gensets Consortium of New Delhi on 9/7/2012. Though the time limit given to the company is for 90 days to start functioning, but the company has assured to start power supply within 60 days.
A 5-MW, non-containerized D.G set was scheduled to be installed by M/s New Bharat Engineering Works of Navi Mumbai, by 7/3/2012. It became finally operational and started delivering upto 3 MW in June, 2012. While M/s New Bharat Engineering Works are being penalized regularly for the delay wef 7/3/2012, they have not being able to deliver fully 5 MW to us, till today. This has resulted in an unforeseen shortfall.
Mr. Srivastava said that one number 1.2 MW Reconditioning Engine was also installed at Phoenix Bay Power House on 18/6/2012 which is successfully under operation since then. Another 2.5 MW DG set of Chatham Power House which is under major overhauling is also expected to be operational within July.
“The present situation of Power shortage arose due to fresh collapse of 5 MW Unit of M/s Suryachakra Power Corporation, which was temporarily repaired on 19/3/2012 and put into operation. The repair works are expected to be completed within July itself and the 5 MW shortfall will be restored and this would reduce the duration of load shedding. We have even released some past dues of Rs. 9.55 crores to M/s Suryachakra Power Corporation so that the overhauling of their D.G. sets at Bambooflat is not held up for the want of funds,” he said.
The Principal Secretary appealed to the general public to bear with the temporary inconvenience with the Administration and he assured that shortly this shortage will be met with.
“It was expected that the SPCL gensets repaired in March, 2012 requiring repairs would at least stay functional till the containerized DG sets of 10 MW are installed and start contributing power. The unexpected breakdown of 5 MW genset of SPCL, and the shortage of 2 MW by New Bharat, has been the instant cause for the situation, which we are trying best to rectify. We further appeal to the general public to use the electricity judiciously and stop the use of energy intensive equipments indiscriminately,” he added.
