Tripura-NTPC in loggerheads over power bill of Rs 14 crore

FROM A CORRESPONDENT

Agartala, July 22 : The Government of Tripura is heading for a bitter tussle with the tiol Thermal Power Corporation over a bill of Rs 14 crore as price for supply of 56 MW power per day to the state for last three months. Power minister of Tripura Manik Dey has already written a letter to the union power minister

expressing the state’s ibility to pay the bill and sought his intervention to resolve the issue.

The tussle veered around a coal based thermal power plant installed at Bongaigaon in Assam by NTPC which started production recently. The NTPC started sending 56 MW power from the plant to Tripura despite the state refused to accept it.

The NTPC supplied the power on the basis of an agreement with the Tripura State Electric Corporation Limited before the installation of the project. However, the TESCL has informed the NTPC earlier that it is termiting the agreement as they failed to complete the installation as per schedule. Another reason for termiting the agreement was that, by the time, the state became self sufficient in power following installation of 725 MW Palata Power Project in South Tripura district. The share of power the state is receiving from Palata is much more than its actual requirement and the state is selling 100 MW from its share to Bangladesh.

Though the TSECL termited the agreement the NTPC did not agreed with it and started supplying 56 MW power per day to Tripura as per the origil agreement. Despite repeated request from the TSECL they refused to stop supplying the power and recently send a bill of Rs 14 crore for three months. The sources in the TSECL also said that the price quoted by the NTPC at a rate of Rs 5.50 per unit is much higher than the market price. Moreover they are in a compelling situation as there is hardly any buyer of the power NTPC is producing. According to sources, there is a huge demand for power in the country but most of the state electric corporations are not in a position to buy it as they are hugely indebted. At present, the cumulative debt of all the state electric supply corporations is more than rupees three lakh crore.