The visit of the House committee for public sector undertakings to the site of the Barapole small hydroelectric project here on September 20 highlights the potential of the project commissioned in February, even as its electricity generation is still to be full-fledged owing to the delay in rectifying a defunct generator.
The visit of the panel led by former Minister C. Divakaran, MLA, stressed the importance of this environment-friendly project as a model for the entire State as also the losses suffered owing to the delay on the part of the Kirloskar Brothers company in making the defunct generator operational.
The project had been operational from June 23 since the onset of monsoon, but its full generational capacity is still to be achieved because of the failure of one of the three generators, each having 5 MW generation capacity. The Rs.138-crore project is located on the Barapole (Barapuzha) river, a tributary of the Valapattanam river.
The committee has found that the delay in rectifying the generator has resulted in a loss of Rs.80 lakh. Mr. Divakaran said the committee would propose legal action against the company to demand the latter to compensate the loss. Also under scrutiny of the panel was the expenditure in excess of the estimated project cost of Rs.120 crore. Project officials were directed to submit a report in this regard.
Generation turbines
Each of the three generation turbines requires a minimum water flow of 12 cubic metre per second. So the project’s full utilisation is during monsoon when the water flow is expected to increase to 36 cubic metres per second.
When contacted, project Executive Engineer G. Anil told The Hindu that over the past three months, 9.6 million units of electricity had been generated. If the failed generator had been functional during the period, three million additional units could have been generated. He said that the Kirloskar Brothers engineers are at work to revive the generator. The repair works were expected to be completed in a month, he said.
Sunny Joseph, MLA, who is also part of the House committee, said the government should consider the eco-tourism potential of the project. MLAs Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, M.M. Mani, Raju Abraham, Ahamed Kabeer, P.T.A. Raheem, P. Unni and C. Krishnan were also present.
The works for installing solar panels being laid over the three km long canal from the river and along the canal side are also to be finished.
