Paddy sowing season: On day 1, GVK power plant ditches PSPCL
PATIALA: Its overdependence on private plants for power generation has given a jolt to the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) on the first day of the paddy-sowing season.
The 540MW GVK thermal plant at Goindwal ditched the power corporation on Wednesday as it shut down due to coal shortage.
Notably, private thermal plants take hundreds of crores of rupees in winter without supplying power.
However, what irked the PSPCL more is the misreporting of coal stocks by GVK, as the company was claiming to have stocks for four days, but when it was asked to run the plant on full capacity, it claimed the stocks were finished.
Stunned over the development and shortage of 540MW power from internal sources, the PSPCL is meeting its demand of 10,800 MW by arranging power from Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Tamil Nadu.
An official familiar with the development said for the past 15 days, the company has been consistently sending daily reports showing coal stocks of around four days. As per the agreement, the PSPCL was making them payment as fixed costs, when they were operating only one unit of 270 MW.
As paddy sowing started on Wednesday, the PSPCL asked GVK to provide 540 MW, but the company expressed its inability to do so, which reavealed that they misrepresented facts on the coal stocks to mint the fixed cost.
As per the agreement, the PSPCL pays fixed cost, even if the plant is not operational, provided the company has the coal stocks. However, GVK was minting money as fixed cost, without having coal stocks.
‘CLEAR DECEIT BY GVK’
“It was a clear deceit on the part of GVK, and violation of the Grid Code. As per the laid rules, the PSPCL will penalise them heavily for this lapse,” said Baldev Singh Sran, chairman-cummanaging director, PSPCL.
He said the PSPCL has rushed its team to Goindwal to have a site report. Sran said that despite the suden setback, the PSPCL successfully met the 10,800 MW demand for power on Wednesday and Thursday.
“The PSPCL was quick to put standby arrangements in place. We arranged 200 MW of power from MP and 50 MW from Tamil Nadu under banking for today. For tomorrow, 300 MW will be arranged from MP & 100 MW from Tamil Nadu. The power supply from Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) has been rescheduled to have 100 MW more during day time,” he elaborated.
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Vikas Shukla, plant head, GVK, Goindwal Sahib, admitted that they are out of coal stocks.
Regarding “misreporting” of stocks to the PSPCL, he said, “As per the record, we had stocks, but physically we ran out of stocks. May be, their are some measurement-related problems. But I admit we are out of stocks, whereas we have shown 3.7 days of coal stocks.” He said the plant will remain closed till June 24, as the coal stocks will build in twothree days. He said they will send their response to the PSPCL on the issue. GVK charges a fixed cost of ₹2.20 per unit, when it is not in operation, provided it has coal stocks.