NEW DELHI: After a gap of almost four months, the Dabhol power project resumed operations on Wednesday, Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said on Thursday.

"The Dabhol project was restarted on Wednesday . It is generating about 150 MW at present, but this will go up slowly," Mr. Shinde told newspersons on the sidelines of a conference here.

With the plant being run on naphtha, the Government has already reduced the customs duty on the fuel feedstock, Mr. Shinde said, while denying reports on selling the Dabhol project. "There are no such plans. Why should we sell it?" he said.

The jinxed power project, which was mothballed for a long period, was restarted in May this year in a bid to make up for a part of the power shortfall in Maharashtra. However, the plant had to be shut down in early July following the onset of the monsoon.

As GAIL India Ltd. and NTPC Ltd, the two new joint promoters of the project since renamed as Ratnagiri Gas & Power, have been unable to tie up liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies as yet, the 740 MW plant (Block-II) of the project is being fuelled by imported naphtha feedstock in the short term. Consequently, the cost of power generation is likely to be slightly more than Rs. 5 a unit (kWh).

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