Even while Tamil Nadu is reeling under severe power shortage, it appears bizarre to keep capacity idle. The Kudankulam nuclear plant should have been commissioned three years ago: the Russians delayed it. But, had the State involved itself more closely with its progress, it could have saved a year. By timely and decisive action the State could have reaped the benefit of generating
2000 MW of power for at least a year now. We estimated the
cost of delay at Rs. 14.4 crore per day!
Here's another bizarre instance: a 600 MW power generating
station of the Tamil Nadu Government at Mettur has remained idle for months. Reason: delay in constructing nine transmission towers through Tirupur to evacuate the power. Recently, the Madras High Court chided the Collector of Tirupur for stalling this project. Experts from the TANGEDCO designed the route of the transmission
lines through Tirupur which was accepted by the then Collector. His successor lent credence to the voice of a few farmers who protested over the transmission towers erected through their lands and suggested TANGEDCO re-routes them. The considerate Collector stalled the work. The High Court held that the Collector did not possess the expertise to overrule TANGEDCO and directed that the original route be taken.
The investment of about
Rs. 2400 crore could have been
recovered through the revenue
generated in less than two
years!
There is an equally bizarre
action on the part of a Thiruvallur
District Collector. He ordered
a deviation in the route
for setting up transmission towers
to evacuate power from the
1200MW North Chennai
Thermal Power Station (Stage
III). The delay in constructing
a 34 km transmission line is the
cause behind the inability to
commission the power plant for
over a year now. TANTRANSCO
had appealed to
seek judicial remedy and that
involved familiar delays. Justice
N. Paul Vasantha Kumar upheld
TANTRANSCO's appeal.
Thus, in less than a week, the
High Court delivered two vital
judgments. It is cause for wonder
why the Chief Secretary, the
Energy Secretary, and the State
Planning Commission cannot
monitor on a daily basis the
progress of major projects so
vital to the State.
In 2002, Industrial Economist
(IE) brought together the chief
executives of five large power
sector entities, BHEL, L&T-ECC,
Neyveli Lignite Corporation,
TNEB and the Ennore
Port. IE convened a meeting
under the chairmanship of then
Tamil Nadu Minister of
Finance, C. Ponnaiyan.
Dr. M.S.
Swaminathan,
then
Deputy Chairman, TN Planning
Commission, participated
in it. We mooted the idea of
creating a consortium of these
five entities to construct a
1000MW power plant at
Ennore Port. The chief executives
of these five institutions
were impressed with the idea
involving an equity of Rs. 750
crore to be contributed by them
and the balance of around Rs.
2500 crore being taken on loan
and sharing the responsibilities
amongst themselves. NTPC,
however, played spoilsport, offering
to contribute 89 per cent
along with TNEB (11 per cent)
to set up the plant and torpedoed
the IE plan. Subsequently
NTPC and TNEB planned to
set up a 1500 MW (3x500
MW) plant at Vallur. This idea
was mooted in June 2002. Ten
years later, even the first unit of
500MW has not been commissioned.
Another joint venture that
was floated after IE's proposal
was to set up a 1000 MW
(2x500MW) plant at Tuticorin
jointly by NLC and TNEB. This
is still a non-starter. The
1200MW (2x600MW) Udangudi
power plant, to be set up
jointly by BHEL and TNEB, has
made little progress over the
five years since it was
announced in 2007 and recently
the JV was terminated by the
State Government.
The 4000MW Ultra Mega
Power Plant at Cheyyar got
bogged down, initially with environment
clearance hurdles and
later with land acquisition problems.
The DMK government was in
power in Tamil Nadu till May
2011. It also had a sizeable say in
the Union Government. It could
have succeeded in getting the
needed environmental clearances,
coal linkages, funding, etc.
with ease, but failed to do so.
Even while the present Government
is demanding higher allocation
of power from the Centre,
it would do well to look at
what is holding up generation of
power from within its own domain,
and remove the bottlenecks
that are preventing the
smooth execution of projects already
sanctioned.
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