MP power plant commissioned before start of operations

To gain publicity, the Madhya Pradesh government reportedly synchronised the 510 Mw Sanjay Gandhi Thermal Power project at Birsinghpur in Shahdol and operated under load.

The project is still not operational and will be operational on full load only after three months. Rs 85 crore has been deducted from the BHEL payments. The BHEL is executing the project on a turn-key basis.

State power minister Kailash Vaijayvergiya also admitted recently in the Assembly in a written reply that BHEL was solely responsible for operations under load. BJP senior leader LK Advani inaugurated the project in a low-key manner last month; even a select media was allowed to cover the inauguration.

"State has deducted an amount of Rs 85 crore as liquidated damage from BHEL payments. The amount had been deducted during 27 December, 2006 to 15 June, 2007. The state government had placed a work order of Rs 1449.56 crore. After price variation the total payment will be Rs 1850 crore. The BHEL had already been paid an amount of Rs 1381 crore (except for liquidated damages)," the minister said.

The BHEL had to complete the project by December 2006 but it was inaugurated in a haphazard manner on June 28 this year. "On the day of inauguration the project started generating 35 Mw load for a period of two-and-a-half hour. The unit is closed since and the rest of the works are being executed," the minister has said in the reply.

During 2004-05, thermal power generation of the state has gone down by 1,019 million units as compared to the power generation of the year 2002-03 since the age-old thermal power stations frequently develop technical snag. The combined production capacity of thermal power stations stands at 1,500 MW.

The state government said it had raised its share capital in the project during April, 2007 from Rs 590.14 crore to Rs 610.92 crore since the project cost has been increased from Rs 2,093.75 crore to Rs 2,300 crore.