‘Water shortages hit power plants’

Besides,some thermal power units were also not taken up for annual overhaul and maintenance last year resulting in low PUF,he said.

“Our power generation at Satpura thermal station in Betul district,having an installed capacity to generate over 1100 mw,was badly hit for want of water,” the CMD said.

“One per cent loss in PUF accounts roughly for Rs 35 crore loss annually. We have not yet worked out the exact loss,” he said.

However,he denied that one per cent loss of PUF results in the loss of nearly Rs 75 crore estimated by some of the energy experts.

The installed thermal power generation capacity of Madhya Pradesh at present stands at 2857.5 Mega Watt (MW).

“Our cost of production of a unit of thermal power comes to around Rs 1.60 and not Rs 3,” the CMD said.

Agarwal said that this financial year the annual maintenance and overhaul was being carried out in a time-bound manner,adding that they had already taken up the state’s biggest thermal unit of 500 MW in Umaria district for annual maintenance following which it was closed for 15 days since April 12.

Following reforms in power sector,five companies,including a generation and three distribution companies were carved out on July 1,2002 from MPSEB (still in existence) after Madhya Pradesh Vidhut Sudhar Adhiniyam was enacted to bring down the Board’s huge losses.

In 2001-02,the PUF of MPSEB was 62.90 per cent but after reforms it climbed to little over 73 per cent in 2002-03,official sources said.

It was 70.21 per cent in 2003-04,followed by 72.09 per cent in 2004-05,68.02 per cent in 2005-06,70.54 per cent in 2006-07,they said.

But after that financial year,the PUF is on a decline given that it came down to 68.91 per cent in 2007-08 and 67.21 per cent in 2008-09 resulting in huge losses to the MPSEB,the sources added.