The Hindu Business Line : Pursue power reforms, PM tells Karnataka

The Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Union Power Minister, Mr Ananth G. Geethe, the Union Minister of State for Power, Ms Jayavanthi Mehta, the Karnataka Governor, Mr T.N. Chaturvedi, and the Chief Minister, Mr S.M. Krishna, at the inauguration of PowerGrid's transmission terminal project at Kolar on Friday.

BANGALORE, Feb. 14

THE Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has called upon the State Government to actively pursue power sector reforms and initiate action to reduce the high transmission and distribution losses.

Inaugurating the high voltage director current (HVDC) power transmission terminal project of PowerGrid Corporation Ltd (PGCIL) at Kolar on Friday, he said that such high losses were costing the exchequer at least Rs 20,000 crore a year.

Immediate action was necessary to reduce such losses, he added.

The drought situation in the country had pushed up power demand and at the same time, power production, especially from hydel sources, was unable to keep pace with this escalation.

"Accordingly, existing sources of power should be fully utilised to meet the demand shortfall."

He complemented PGCIL for commissioning the project nine months ahead of schedule and saving at least Rs 700 crore in the process.

The original estimate of the project was about Rs 3,865 crore, whereas the completion cost was at Rs 2,700 crore.

The Kolar HVDC station has an evacuation capacity of 2000 MW at peak hours.

In terms of distance traversed, at 1,400 km, it is the longest in the world.

This transmission line will help evacuate surplus from the 3000 MW Talcher-Kaniha station of National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) at 500 KV.

Three of the stations are already operational and three more are slated for commissioning during this year and 2006.

The Prime Minister said that the HVDC project would help the southern regions partly meet the power shortfall this year.

This was because availability to the beneficiary States - Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu - and the Union Territory of Pondicherry is expected to improve by at least 10,000 million units per year.

The power generated from the Eastern grid would be fed into the high voltage alternating current station at Talcher and converted into direct current before being transmitted through the inter-connect grid.

At the Kolar receiving station, the power would be reconverted to alternating current before being transmitted to the beneficiary States.

HVDC transmission cuts line losses to two per cent.

However, this project is unlikely to help avert any grid collapses due to overdrawal, PGCIL officials said.

There is also no method of isolating any of the overdrawing grids without the co-operation of the load despatch stations.

These stations are operated by the regional grids or State utilities.

But with the advent of availability-based tariff from January this year, overdrawal has somewhat reduced in view of the penal provisions.

The Chief Minister, Mr S.M. Krishna made a plea for reviving the proposal to set up a 2000 MW station by NTPC in Mangalore.

NTPC had dropped this project in 2002.

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