The Madhya Pradesh government has chalked out plans to renovate and refurbish its old power generation thermal units with an outlay of Rs 2,450 crore during the next financial year.
“An amount of Rs 1,390 crore will be invested in a few new units, and renovation and strengthening of old thermal power generation units,” a senior official said,adding, “a detail programme has been chalked out for the purpose.”
The state is facing sever power crisis and power outage is more than 15 hours a day in rural areas. The thermal generation is 2,200 Mw while demand of power reaches 7,000 Mw during peak hours. Peak power demand of irrigation pumps used by farmers during current Rabi season has touched 2,000 Mw.
“This year there was better maintenance of all old units. At present we are renovating and upgrading Amarkantak thermal power unit and Chachai thermal power unit of 120 Mw capacity each, with an investment of Rs 124 crore, of which Rs 99 crore will come from power finance corporation. Similarly 200 Mw unit of Satpura thermal power station and other five units of 62.5 Mw capacity are also being renovated. Further four units of 210 Mw capacity Sanjay Gandhi thermal power station at Birsinghpur are likely to be renovated soon. There is a plan to invest Rs 1,390 crore on renovation and up-gradation of existing power plants this year,” the official said.
State thermal power stations generate 2,200 Mw from thermal power stations, 450 Mw from hydropower units, 550 Mw from Indira Sagar, 500 Mw from Sardar Sarovar, 200 Mw from Omkareshwar and receives 2,100 Mw from the Central quota.