Produce maximum power, govt tells private producers

UPPCL CHAIRMAN M DEVARAJ SAID EFFORTS WERE BEING MADE TO RESTART ALL THE UNITS THAT HAVE BEEN SHUT DOWN FOR TECHNICAL OR MAINTENANCE ISSUES

LUCKNOW : The state government has directed the private thermal plants to ensure optimum power generation in view of an increasing power demand these days in the state even as a conked 660 MW unit of the Bajaj group’s Lalitpur plant resumed production on Wednesday, further easing the electricity crisis in the state.

Holding a meeting with the representatives of the private thermal plants owned by the Reliance Energy, the Bajaj, Lanco, the MB Power, the TRM and the KS here on Wednesday, principal secretary (energy) and UP Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) chairman M Devaraj said that all efforts were being made to increase the power production by repairing the units that went out of order.

After he was told that coal availability in thermal plants had improved, Devaraj told the private producers to produce maximum power in the larger public interest in view of an increasing power demand that crossed 23,500 MW during peak time.

“Despite all the odds, the UPPCL is trying to supply record power to consumers by making additional arrangements of 2000 MW power from different sources,” he said.

He said that the 660 MW Lalitpur thermal unit that had been under repair for the last several days started generation on Wednesday after efforts made on a war-footing and this would further augment generation and ease the power crisis.

He said similar efforts were being made to restart all other units that have been shut down for technical or maintenance issues.

Devaraj directed UPPCL officials to take all the precautions to ensure maximum power supply to consumers by avoiding unnecessary load shedding resulting from issues related to poor maintenance of transformers, cables, lines etc. He said the minimum possible time should be taken to restore the supply interrupted due to a local fault.

He was told in the meeting that 19,652 of 20,211 transformer-related complaints received on the toll-free no 1912 between April 4 and May 1 had been disposed of while 2,10,148 of the 2,11,472 grievances were redressed promptly during the same period.