HYDERABAD: A programme has been chalked out by the Government to purchase power to the extent of 1,962 million units this year from private plants run on naphtha, the costliest fuel.

This will be only one channel chosen to make purchases to fill the deficit assessed at 4,471 million units this year, with the availability from all sources put at 58,301 mu against a total demand of 62,772 mu.

The other channels through which power will be purchased are power traders like Power Trading

Corporation (1,820 mu) and overdrawals from the southern grid (687 mu).

The purchases from all these sources will place an additional burden of Rs. 2,832 crore on the consumers.

Power purchase

The price, at which power was purchased from a private naphtha-run plant, worked out to Rs. 8 per unit during the peak summer and with the inclusion of transmission and distribution losses and costs, it went up to Rs. 12 per unit.

At a review meeting on power sector issues here on Thursday, Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, however, promised to meet the cost of additional purchases.

This would be in addition to Rs. 1,040 crore of subsidy already being released by the Government this year.

The shortage would not have been so much but for the non-supply of gas to four completed projects which have a combined capacity of 1,499 MW.

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