UP to buy power from Bengal, MP

Failing to get additional power from the northern grid, UP has decided to buy power directly from other states through the Power Trading Corporation (PTC).

The UP Power Corporation has signed a deal with the PTC for buying power from West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh to tide over the power crisis from September to December next.

The PTC will levy "wheeling charges" on the total power supplied by it to the UP Power Corporation. The deal for additional power is politically crucial for the state as assembly polls are due in February 2007.

As per the deal, UP will buy 250 Mw power daily from Andhra Pradesh from September 1 to December 31 and 500 Mw daily from West Bengal, from November 1 to December 31 next.

Sources in the UPPCL said, "We will buy power from West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh and with the availability of additional power from Tehri Hydroelectric project from July end and from Vishnu Prayag hydro electric project in Uttaranchal we hope to tide over the crisis to a large extent during the peak demand in festival season of Dusshera, Deepawali and Ramzan."

Sources in the UPPCL said they had approached the Himachal Pradesh government also for additional power but the rates quoted by it were exorbitant.

"We were left with no option but to approach other states directly and arrange power," sources said.

State CM Mulayam Singh Yadav had repeatedly said that the Centre was discriminating against the state and its entire might was focused on addressing the power crisis in Delhi and other Congress-ruled states like Haryana and Punjab.

Instead of providing additional power, the Centre was imposing fine on the state for overdrawl from the northern grid, sources in the UPPCL said.

The Northern Regional Load Dispatch Centre (NRLDC) had imposed a fine of Rs 15 lakh on the UPPCL in June 2005 for violating the "grid discipline" by over drawing power from the northern grid.

The Uttar Pradesh government, in response to the NRLDC's action, said that Punjab and Haryana were consistently overdrawing from the northern grid but the corporation had done nothing to prevent it. On the complaints of the UP government, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission constituted a committee to probe the issue.

The UPPCL has submitted detailed statement to the committee quoting from the daily record of the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited, on the overdrawl by each northern state.