The Odisha government has urged the Union ministry of power (MoP) to notify de-allocation of costly power allocated to the state from NTPC’s plants outside Odisha.
The state has to fork out Rs 7.22 per unit for power procured from NTPC stations located outside the state against Rs 3.15 per unit charged for power bought from an NTPC plant within the state.
“We have asked the MoP to notify the de-allocation of power allotted from the upcoming NTPC stations located outside Odisha so that the state is not burdened with payment of fixed cost without availing power,” said a government official.
The MoP, in July 2012, had allocated 418 Mw to Odisha from Barh Stage-I (3×660 Mw) and 166 Mw from Barh Stage-II (2×660) of NTPC plants located in Bihar. As per NTPC bill, the total power procurement from these stations comes to Rs 7.22 per unit including capacity charge of Rs 2.80 per unit and energy charge of Rs 4.42 per unit.
Odisha has also sought allocation of funds from the National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF) for promotion of renewable energy projects in the state. The government of India has been collecting a central cess on coal towards National Clean Energy Fund (NCEF) to be used for research and development activities. The NCEF corpus had touched Rs 10,127 crore (as on March 2014) and is expected to have grown by another Rs 6,800 crore by the end of March 2015 with the doubling of cess on coal from Rs 50 to Rs 100 per tonne.
While coal rich states have been contributing to the enrichment of NCEF funds, the beneficiaries have generally been the western states where NCEF corpus has been used to facilitate generation of solar energy in a big way.
State owned Odisha Hydro Power Corporation (OHPC) is planning to establish 600 Mw pump storage hydro power plant at Upper Indravati hydro electric project at a cost of Rs 1600 crore to address the peak power requirement in the state. It has sought financial support from the Centre through NCEF to fund this project.
Prasanta Patnaik 
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