The Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) has approached the Power Finance Corporation (PFC) to fund its 2 X 210 MW Khaperkheda 5 and 6 units.
The Board held detailed discussions yesterday with the top PFC brass for funds over Rs 350 crore to finance its power project estimated at Rs 800 crore. The PFC board is expected to decide on the issue.
MSEB is expected to raise soft loans from state industrial corporations and by getting supplier's credit from BHEL. Besides it also plans to meet part of its expenses through internal accruals. The Central government is expected to provide a 4 per cent interest subsidy on the PFC loan. It has, as a measure to accelerate the power generation and supply, decided to grant such subsidy to all power projects completed before 2000.
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The interest subsidy is available to those projects for which disbursements are made during 1997-98. The government will make an allocation of Rs 200 crore in the Union budget for financing this subsidy.
Since Khaperkeda 5 & 6 units are expected to be commissioned in 1999-2000, MSEB expects PFC to provide the loan under this scheme. Although the interest subsidy would be proportionately reduced in case of a delay in the commissioning of generation projects in relation to the target dates, PFC sources claimed that that the Khaperkheda project is expected to be commissioned within the scheduled time-frame.
This is because the state electricity board already has the requisite infrastructure such as coal handling plant, water treatment plant and switch yard. Moreover, MSEB has also tied up for coal linkages for the proposed extension of the power plant.
Earlier, PFC had already sanctioned a loan of around Rs 400 crore for the 2 X 250 MW Khaperkheda 3&4 units. Meanwhile, PFC is also considering a loan of Rs 50 crore to the Mumbai based power company, BSES for receiving and transmitting power in the city. The fund will be utilised to set up power receiving stations from Dahanu plant and distributing underground high voltage cables for distributing power.