The Hindu : New Delhi News : Power plants erred in key areas: CAG

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Friday, Apr 08, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Power plants erred in key areas: CAG

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, APRIL 7 . Demolishing the Delhi Government's tall claims about improvement in power generation, the latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General has found the three plants of the Indraprastha Power Generation Company erring in several key technical areas of power generation, causing monetary losses worth crores to the exchequer.

The report states that there was a generation loss of a staggering Rs.802.73 crores due to lower thermal efficiency while generation losses in the gas turbine plant could have been easily avoided had the requirement of gas been properly and timely assessed. Similarly excess consumption of coal due to its low calorific value resulted in an additional expenditure of Rs.55.51 crores, while the company suffered Rs.18.55 crores losses due to more consumption of secondary oil (light diesel oil) required to ignite boilers and for flame stabilisation.

Stating that the main reason behind the losses was the inefficient working of power generating plants besides failure of power officials to address the lacunae highlighted in the previous CAG reports, it also highlights wasteful expenditure of Rs.48.40 lakhs incurred due to improper shunting and tripling of operations while failure to maintain proper records and coordination with other departments and agencies resulted in a loss of Rs.24.37 crores.

The report explains that a shortfall in achievement of generation targets ranging between 107 million units (MU) to 419 million units during the last financial year was mainly due to non-utilisation of allotted quantity of coal, while the power generation company incurred an extra expenditure of Rs.51.08 crores on procurement of coal at higher rates for the Raj Ghat Power Station. The report explains that low thermal efficiency at the Raj Ghat and Indraprastha plants resulted in a generation loss of 2,773 MU valued at Rs.802.73 crores. In addition, there was an avoidable generation loss of 1,688 MU due to incorrect assessment of the demand for power and requirement of gas in gas turbine plant.

Expressing surprise over how officials ignored basic concepts of running generation plants, the CAG report mentions that 3.04 lakh metric tonnes of coal valued at Rs.55.51 crores was consumed in excess at both Raj Ghat and Indraprastha plants due to its poor quality. The company also failed to recover claims worth Rs.24.37 crores for missing wagons due to failure to produce the railway receipts and colliery bills.

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