NTPC Ltd on Saturday issued a notice to BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd (BRPL) and BSES Yamuna Power Ltd (BYPL) threatening to regulate the electricity supply from February 11. This may impact electricity supply to over 32 lakh customers spread across southern, eastern, central and western parts of Delhi.

Payment security mechanism

NTPC in its notice has said that the discoms have not been able to re-instate the payment security mechanism (commonly known as letter of credit or LC) within seven days as per norms in the power purchase agreement.

The LC was enchased on January 31 after the discom failed to clear its dues to the power generating company. “So, the shortfall in LC with effect from February 1 is ₹ 271.61 crore (in the case of BRPL),” NTPC said.

For BYPL, the LC amount is ₹ 168.29 crore and also pending payments of ₹ 96.07 crore for January 2014.

Power purchase agreement

NTPC would regulate 1,261 MW of supplies to BRPL and another 811 MW for BYPL. As per the power purchase agreement (PPA), maintenance of LC of adequate amount and timely replenishment of LC on negotiation is a pre-requisite for availing power from NTPC stations.

Public sector power producer NTPC has already turned down a request from the Delhi Government asking it to extend the payment schedule for another Delhi discom – BSES Yamuna Power Ltd (BYPL).

Load shedding

The discoms were supposed to clear the payments by Friday. Earlier, BYPL had informed the Government of imminent likelihood of load shedding of up to 8 to 10 hours in East and Central Delhi from next week. The utility claims to have no funds available to make payments to NTPC or NHPC for power supplies in January 2014.

>siddhartha.s@thehindu.co.in

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