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Maharashtra, whose power deficit has fallen to a paltry 500 MW from a record level of 3,100 MW five years ago excluding Mumbai, was in surprise by the desire expressed by Coimbatore textile mills to shift to the state for being load shedding free especially industrial consumers.
These mills currently reeling under acute power shortage in Tamil Nadu have conveyed that they are quite impressed by the fact that all industrial feeders are supplied electricity 24X7 by the state-run Maharashtra Electricity Distribution Company (MahaVitaran).
This is notwithstanding closure of Dabhol power project and few MahaGenco projects for want of fuel. Whatever very meager gap is there, that is not because of non-availability of power but because of the non-paying culture of the consumers.
Despite peak demand crossed 15,073 MW on March 25, there are for a change no agitations or any incident of damaging of MahaVitaran’s property or attack on its employees. Aricultural consumers are provided 8 hours supply during day time for 4 days and 10 hours supply during night time for 3 days.
State deputy chief minister and energy minister Ajit Pawar told Business Standard, “Maharashtra is 82% load shedding free. MahaVitaran is carrying out load shedding in the regions with high distribution losses and long pending arrears.”
Pawar informed that energy deficit in the year 2005 was 18% which has reduced to mere 3% in 2013. This gap is due to load shedding in high loss and non-paying areas. Mahavitaran is capable of filling this gap at any given point of time.
MahaVitaran official said the demand is currently met through power purchases from MahaGenco, independent power producers, power exchanges and also through bilateral contracts.
“MahaVitaran recently drew 300 MW from the market at Rs 2.90 per unit. Had Dabhol power project and few projects of MahaGenco not closed, MahaVitaran would have become surplus power to sell in the market,” he noted.
He also rubbished reports that MahaVitaran was purchasing costly power from the independent power producers when MahaGenco had to back down some of its power plants. Instead, the official said MahaViataran’s move to enter into contracts with IPPs is paying off as the closure of Dabhol project and few projects run by MahaGenco had not resulted in widening the gap between demand and supply.
Further, the MahaVitaran official said out of the total demand of the state, 25% demand is of the agricultural sector which is in the average range of 4000-4500 MW.
“Mahavitaran implemented Single Phasing Scheme and Separate Gaothan Feeder Scheme for 31,000 Agriculture dominated villages of the total 41,000 villages of Maharashtra. Because of this, we could stagger or monitor the demand of agricultural sector to about 2500-3000 MW. Due to these initiatives, the demand which was generally within the range of about 17,000-17,500 MW reduced to 14,000 to 14,700 MW,” the official informed.
According to the official, about 5000 MW power is added up to 2012-13 in the system through Mahagenco, Central Sector, Ultra Mega Projects, Long term, Medium term and short term power purchases. The capacity addition in the system in 2013-14 will be 5115 MW and in 2014-15, 3235MW will be added.
