Munde was in the city, Thursday, to attend a function organised to release a postal stamp commemorating Dr K B Hedgewar, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh founder.

He brushed aside the assertion of Banwarilal Purohit, former MP, that power could be available at lower rates from the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), saying the comment is based on `complete ignorance'. He also termed the demand of Purohit to scrap phase II of the Enron project as `crazy'.

He said the NTPC has no power surplus. The corporation decides in advance the power quota for each State and is not in a position to sell even a single megawatt of extra power. In this situation there is no waypower could be purchased from them at lower rates, the Energy Minister said.

Commenting on the recently-publicised letter of MSEB chief Ashok Basak to the Chief Secretary which mentioned that the State has surplus power, Munde said that the chairman has taken all the ongoing and future power projects (including the Bhadravati Power Project) into consideration while presenting this picture. The deputy chief minister also clarified he had earlier commented that the State was `self-sufficient' in terms of power production and not that it had surplus production.

He said the State at present has an installed capacity of about 12,500 MW power annually. However, the demand for power is increasing at 10 per cent per annum. This year, the demand increased by 15 per cent. It is imperative to increase power generation looking at future demand, he said. He also said the plant load factor in the State is 68 per cent this year. The PLF was 49 per cent when he took over as Energy Minister, Munde said. He brushed asidedemands that the PLF should be increased to 90 per cent. He also said the life span of some of the projects had ended.