Promise of gas supply to power stations remains unfulfilled

vadodara: the promise of providing one million cubic metres of gas to gujarat for power generation by union petroleum minister ram naik about a year back, still remains unfulfilled with gujarat electricity board (geb) yet to receive it, said sources. naik had made this promise at gandhar in january last year. on the top of all this, gas produced in gujarat is supplied to uttar pradesh for meeting the power generation requirements there which is transported through the hbj pipeline.investments worth rs 6,000 crore made in gas-based power projects in the state is proving counter productive. these thermal power stations located at barods, jhanor, kawas, pagothan, ahmedabad, dhuvaran and utran are not in a position to generate power as per their fully-installed capacity due to the non-allocation of the assured quantity of gas to them. on account of this, geb has been suffering heavy damages in terms of generation of power and financial losses. the total installed capacity of geb and other agencies which own gas-based power stations in the state is 2,035 mw. this amounts to about 35 per cent of gujarat's total installed capacity of over 8,000 mw of power. it includes the state's proportionate share of allocation of power from central power projects, units and power stations owned by ahmedabad electricity company (aec) and independent power producers (ipps) in the state. these ipps are gujarat state electricity corporation limited, essar power, gujarat power gen corporation and gipcl among others. as against the assured allocation of 7 lakh cubic metres of gas per day, the 135 mw gas-based power station at utran is getting only 5.20 lakh cubic metres of gas per day due to which generation has decreased by 1,765 lakh units. due to this lesser power generation, geb suffered a loss of rs 116 crore. the situation at the gas-based power station at dhuvaran is not different where power generation has decreased by 287 lakh units. the gas allocation for the 655 mw gas-based power station at paguthan in bharuch district is currently 3 lakh metre per day as against the assured quantity of 15 lakh cubic metres of gas per day.