Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Friday asked the Centre to ensure supply of gas to the Bawana power plant as power production at the facility remained severely affected due to shortage of fuel.
At a meeting with Union Petroleum Minister M. Veerappa Moily, Ms. Dikshit asked him to ensure supply adequate quantity of gas to make module one of the plant fully operational so that it can generate 750MW of power. The plant is currently generating around 250 MW.
The Chief Minister demanded supply of 1.4 Million Metric Standard Cubic Meter of gas to the plant per day at the earliest.
Officials, who attended the meeting, said Mr. Moily assured Ms. Dikshit that he was concentrating on supply of gas to the power plants and the issue would be settled soon.
The Centre had allocated 0.93 mmscmd gas from Reliance’s Andhra offshore KG-D6 fields for Bawana for 2009-10 and 2010-11 but as the plant missed the scheduled deadline, Delhi Government could not sign the Gas Sales Purchase Agreement with RIL.
In April last year after synchronisation of two gas-fired turbines of 250 MW at the plant, Delhi Government had approached RIL to sign the contract.
But Reliance said it was in not in a position to sign the contract as available gas has already been allocated to other entities.
Severe shortage
The plant, which is considered as one of the major gas-based power plants in the country, has been facing severe shortage of fuel for over one year.
The first module of the plant, which has a capacity to generate at least 750 MW of power, was made ready in April last year but it could start producing electricity only 200 to 250 MW of power from November last year after the Oil Ministry allocated 1.564 mmscmd (million metric standard cubic metres per day) gas to the plant from ONGC.
However, irregular supply of gas has been forcing pe-riodic shutdowns of the plant.
After failing to get gas for the plant from RIL as per an earlier understanding, Delhi Government had on many occasions demanded of the Centre allocation of gas so that the plant could generate 750 MW of power so as to bridge the gap between demand and supply in the summer months.
The Capital gets 2,400 MW from Central quota, while nearly 1,000 MW is produced by Delhi’s own electricity generating stations. As per projection by Central Electricity Authority, the power demand in Delhi will jump to 8,700 MW by 2017.
