The Maharashtra State Electricity Board Workers Federation has opposed the load shedding being resorted to by the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) and challenged its claim of power shortages in the system.
In a press release, the working president of the federation, Mohan Sharma has said that the load shedding has tarnished the image of the MSEB and alleged that it was a deliberate attempt to defame the workers and engineers working with the board. The federation has conveyed its feelings to the chairman of MSEB, Yashwant Bhave and charged that the situation has arisen out of "faulty planning" by senior officers in the generation department and the policy of "under generation".
The federation has also said that the unprecedented load shedding due to a shortage of 1,500 MW in the system has come about due to bad planning and asked whether it was not an attempt to force the board into purchasing expensive power from the Enron project. The federation has given a chart showing the generation capacity of MSEB in the state and the total availability of power on September 23. The figures greatly contrast those given by the MSEB and indicate that power generation is down by 50 per cent in the state.
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According to the federation, the Chandrapur Super Thermal Power Station (2,340 MW capacity) produced 855 MW; Koradi (1,080 MW) produced 548 MW; Khaparkheda (840 MW) produced 435 MW; Nasik (910 MW) produced 578 MW; Bhusaval (502 MW) produced 300 MW, Parli (980 MW) produced 563 MW and Koyana (1,000 MW) produced 330 MW. It has demanded an inquiry against the officers who approved a cut in generation.
The federation has also informed that three units totaling 1,210 MW at Chandrapur are not working, one unit of 210 MW at Nasik is not being operated for the past ten days and one at Koradi was also shut down some days ago. It has demanded that work should be started on war footing to get the units back "on line".
The federation has said that MSEB has generation capacity of 12,238 MW which includes 7,392 MW from coal, 2,324 MW of hydel energy and 1,990 MW supplied by Tata Electric Company (TEC) and BSES and has demanded that the board must come clean on the matter and end load shedding.
When contacted at Mumbai the chief public relations officer of MSEB, Ram Dotonde contested the federation's claim regarding availability of power on Saturday. Dotonde said that the availability was "routine" and was in the region of 9,500 MW and 10,000 MW.