Besieged with complaints of power shortage from across the state, the Gujarat government has requested the central government to provide gas and coal in accordance to the agreement.
Besieged with complaints of power shortage from across the state, the Gujarat government has requested the central government to provide gas and coal in accordance to the agreement so that the state can run its power plants at optimum capacities and generate more power.
Minister of state for energy and petrochemicals Saurabh Patel said the state government has voiced its concern to the Centre regarding the insufficient allocation and supply of gas to gas-based power projects in the state. Gujarat has 23% of its installed power-generating capacity based on gas, the highest in the country. The union government has allocated gas to Gujarat from KG basin at 60% plant load factor (PLF) which leads to huge capacity — more than 4,500 mw captive installed capacity — being unutilised because of insufficient availability of gas.
Coal allocation and supply to power projects in Gujarat has also been inadequate. The current system of annual contracted capacity for coal supply, based on actual dispatches of the earlier years than on fuel supply agreement, is also retrograde and does not allow for improvement in PLF.
“Further, even after allocation of coal equivalent to annual contracted capacity, there is shortage of 11 lakh MT per annum for plants of state generation utility such as Gujarat State Electricity Corporation Ltd (GSECL). In order to ensure utilisation of generation projects at optimum level, the annual contracted capacity needs to be enhanced by ministry of coal,” said Patel. The minister added, “The state government has requested the centre that the charging of idle freight to state utilities should be made effective from the date of signing of fuel supply agreement.”
GSECL is facing an additional financial burden on account of increase in annul targets for imported coal. “The centre should look in to it and help. We also requested the centre to give Rs386.6 crore for the rural electrification scheme for which the Gujarat has taken lot of initiatives, more than any other state,” he said.
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