Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao reached Raipur on Sunday afternoon for signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with his Chhattisgarh counterpart Raman Singh on Monday on supply of 1,000 MW of thermal power generated there on long-term basis.
Mr. Rao was accompanied by Finance Minister E. Rajender, Principal Secretary S. Narsing Rao who handles energy in the CMO and a few other officials. Sources said that Principal Secretary (Energy) S.K. Joshi, Chairman and Managing Director of TSGenco D. Prabhakar Rao, Advisor to Government on Energy A.K. Goel and others would reach there on Monday morning.
The Telangana Chief Minister was welcomed by Transport Minister of Chhattisgarh Rajesh Munat on his arrival to Raipur. Mr. Rao and his team went there in a special aircraft .
The MoU between the two Chief Ministers will facilitate signing of a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) between Chhattisgarh Power Trading Corporation and TSGenco for a period of 7 or 12 years at a price to be fixed by the Telangana State Electricity Regulatory Commission (TSERC). Sources stated that the price is likely to be about Rs. 4.50 per unit.
Chhattisgarh will supply power to Telangana from Janjgir thermal power station, first phase (500 MW) of which is likely to be commissioned by this December-end and another 500 MW by the end of the current fiscal. Official sources stated that evacuation of power generated in Janjgir would also be a complex matrix even after injecting it to the national grid as it would depend on the availability of transmission capacity in the Southern Grid.
The Energy Department officials of Telangana are hopeful that they would get space for evacuating about 200 MW to 300 MW initially and later they could utilise the transmission capacity eased out by Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The Telangana government has dropped the proposal of having dedicated corridor to evacuate power from Chhattisgarh since it is highly costly and time consuming.
Meanwhile, senior BJP leader from Telangana Bandaru Dattatreya left Hyderabad for Raipur on Sunday evening for talks with the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister on the issue of power shortage in Telangana. Finance Minister Mr. Rajender, who also holds the portfolio of Civil Supplies, is also expected to study the successful public distribution system being implemented in Chhattisgarh during the visit.
