Power firm’s inefficiency to blame for electricity shortage: Consumers

Consumer associations have blamed the current power crisis on the state’s power generation company, Mahagenco, and its distribution arm, Mahavitaran. They said inefficiency and poor planning by these utilities and inept handling by the energy department caused the unforeseen electricity shortage in the state.

Consumer associations have blamed the current power crisis on the state’s power generation company, Mahagenco, and its distribution arm, Mahavitaran. They said inefficiency and poor planning by these utilities and inept handling by the energy department caused the unforeseen electricity shortage in the state.

HT Image

Pratap Hogade, president of the Maharashtra Power Consumers’ Federation, dismissed the state government’s claims that inadequate supply of coal affected generation in state-owned thermal power plants. “Except Khaparkheda and Parli (New), all other units have a coal supply, which is sufficient for five to 41 days,” Hogade told HT on Thursday.

Mahagenco managing director Subrat Ratho rubbished Hogade’s allegations. “Is Hogade an expert? We have coal stocks of poor quality and wet coal received during monsoon. We are using this coal to fire our plants,” Ratho told HT.

Hogade questioned Mahagenco’s efficiency in running its plants of the installed capacity of 7,220 MW. “We fail to understand why the company has never been able to generate 50% of the total generation capacity. On Wednesday, the thermal generation was above 3,000MW, which, if planned properly could easily be increased to 5,620 MW,” he said.

Abrol said the private players, who were more efficient than their government counterpart, were forced to pay the cost of coal to the coal-producing organisations in advance and at a much higher price as compared to Mahagenco. Ratho ruled out any mismanagement and said Mahagenco was just 500MW short of targeted generation (4,000MW) in October.