PANJIM: Companies in the various industrial estates in the state receiving electricity from Reliance have now begun the exercise of looking at alternative sources for power. This follows a letter issued by Reliance Infrastructure Limited informing its clients that it will stop supplying power after August 13, 2014.
This development caused a great deal of anger and irritation amongst various consumers in the state. A senior corporate manager of a large pharmaceutical company said “This started a couple of months earlier with Reliance issuing a letter stating that we look for an alternative supplier since they would be undergoing some maintenance work in April.”
He revealed that his company purchased power at 13.75 a unit when it was generated by Reliance, however they had to pay Rs 17.65 when Reliance started getting electricity from the state government to give its clients.
This cost the corporate manager said made it the most expensive cost per unit in the country. On June 18th, he said they received a bill which also gave them just seven days to pay otherwise the supply of electricty would be discontinued if the bill was not paid. The CII and other trade associations he said are now involved and they had a meeting with the power secretary.
A meeting with Reliance was scheduled on Monday which was eventually held yesterday. A meeting is expected to be held on July 4 in Verna to decide to next course of action.
For Shekhar Sardessai, president GSIA said “Reliance was charging a rate of Rs 14 per unit and now they are shutting down. Industry needs good quality power and will now have to depend on spot purchases being made by the state government. It should be noted that the industry is not willing to pay more than Rs 4.50 per unit.”
Nitin Kunkolinekar, VP MAIT said “Getting quality power is a challenge. We were using Reliance power at D-link but it did not work out. It was not feasible for us to pay Rs 18 to Rs 20 per unit. The government will have to look for an alternate source of good cheap power”
There are over 76 companies which receive power from Reliance Infrastructure Ltd and the problem between the parties commenced on April 18, when RSPCL sent a mail out to its clients in the Verna Industrial estate stating that there would be a disruption in the supply of electricity starting at midnight which could extend up to four weeks. This disruption the company claimed was due to a problem in a turbine.
Currently, Goa has an allocation of approximately 460 MW from NTPC stations, 28 MW from NPCIL. In 2012-13, Goa required approximately 3550 MUs of power. Based on a targeted GSDP growth rate of 12%, the requirement of power is expected to grow by around 5% year-on-year.
