n Uttar Pradesh discom makes part-payment of dues to facilitate coal purchase
Realising that the forthcoming summers and the ongoing board examinations will throw up the demand for electricity many times over, the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation (UPPCL) has sent an SOS to Lanco Infratech to restart its 1,200-mw power plant at Anpara C in Sonebhadra district. It has even made a part-payment to the company out of the outstanding R500 crore to facilitate the buying of coal to run the plant.
Lanco had closed down both units of 600 mw each as a last resort as UPPCL?s dues rose as it had not paid the power generator since October 2012. The company had also terminated the PPA with UPPCL due to non-payment of dues and changes in the coal policy effected by the Centre.
Confirming that the company had restarted one of its units at Anpara, sources close to the company said that Lanco had taken into account the difficult situation of UPPCL, especially with board exams in progress, and decided to cooperate.
?Heeding the SOS calls made by the UPPCL that it needs power immediately and that we should start generating power, especially as board examinations are underway, we decided to cooperate and do the best we can in public interest. But to restart power generation, we needed to buy coal, for which we had no money. The UPPCL has made some part payment with which we have started buying coal from Coal India and have started operations in unit number 1. We have started building our coal block and when we get enough payment we will buy more coal and only then we will start our second unit,? a Lanco official said, adding that both the units have a combined consumption of 18,000 tonne of coal per day. ?Generally plants have one month’s stock of coal. But at present we have been able to stock only 15 days? requirement. Unless the state government supports us by releasing our outstanding dues, we will not have the money to either buy coal or make payments to our lenders. We cannot run unless the state government facilitates enough coal for the plant,? the official added.
According to sources in the power sector, though UPPCL is deep in the red and has little money to pay for the power dues, it realises that the Anpara C plant is the most competitive among all power plants and supplies the cheapest power among all private sector companies. ?Being a pit-head plant, Anpara C is able to provide UP the cheapest power at R1.91/unit. In fact, since it sells the cheapest power to the state, UPPCL should make special efforts to see that it releases money to Lanco first as that would benefit the state too. Rather than buying costly power from the power exchanges, it is better to pay the cheapest producer on time so that the company keeps generation on track,? said All India Power Engineers Federation secretary general and former UPPCL chief engineer Shailendra Dubey.
When asked whether in the changed scenario the company will rethink its termination of the PPA with UPPCL, the official denied any such move and said that both the issues are different. ?The notice still stands and will continue to stand unless some lasting solution is found for the issues. The only reason for us to restart our plant is that we considered the difficult situation of UPPCL in view of the increased demand for power and decided to help in the general public interest,? he stated.
Hounded by growing outstanding dues from UPPCL and the changes in the coal allocation policy by the Centre, Lanco had terminated the PPA with Uttar Pradesh last month and was on the look for new buyers for its project. As an alternative to the buyout, it had suggested to the UP Electricity Regulatory Commission to determine a new tariff for the supply of power from the project, which would be commercially viable for it.
