Telegraph Kolkatta
DVC delays dog Commonwealth power
- As many as six new projects held up in Jharkhand, Bengal
SANTOSH K. KIRO
Ranchi, Oct. 18: Chances of Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) meeting its promise of supplying 2,500MW power to Delhi for the 2010 Commonwealth Games look dim with five expansion projects in Jharkhand and Bengal unlikely to be ready by then.

The two projects that are likely to meet the deadline of October 3, 2010, are the Mejia thermal power station in Bengal’s Bankura district and Chandrapura thermal power station of Jharkhand (see box).

But, they can collectively produce only 60 per cent of the total power promised by DVC to the Delhi government.

Engineers working on the new projects attribute two inter-linked reasons for the delays. One, the DVC management wasn’t pushing the projects hard enough and, two, the absence of a chairman for the last one year was making things even more difficult within the organisation.

DVC secretary Subrata Biswas, who was running the show in the absence of a chairman for the power-manufacturing organisation, was appointed chairman only three days ago. He agreed that project deadlines had been deferred, but denied that the absence of a chairman had affected their progress.

Padamjit Singh, the president of All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPUF), did not quite agree. “We are very concerned about the slow progress of the expansion projects. The new deadlines set by the DVC management do not meet the October timeframe of the Commonwealth Games,” he said. “Had there been a chairman for the past one year, he would have pushed through the work judiciously to meet the deadline,” he added.

The DVC is a major contributor to power generation having set up units in Jharkhand and Bengal. Currently, it produces 2,850MW power that is supplied to several states, including Jharkhand and Bengal.

In 2007, the DVC entered into an agreement with the Delhi government to supply 2,500MW power for the Games keeping in mind its new projects in Jharkhand and Bengal, which were to collectively generate 6,750MW.

“The agreement with the Delhi government had been signed in the hope that the new projects would start generating power by October 2010,” said a DVC engineer, requesting anonymity. But, so far, the only project that has managed to generate power is the one at Mejia, that too 500MW, which is half its capacity.

The Centre had well over one year to appoint a new chairman in DVC after the former chairman Aseem Kumar Burman’s tenure ended on November 30, 2008.