Sandesh Prabhudesai
5 July 1999
The first private power generation plant in Goa, and perhaps sixth in the country, is being commissioned by the Reliance Salgaoncar Power Company Ltd. The next target of the government is to also corporatise the transmission and distribution.
Rather than generating its own power, the youngest and smallest state of the country was surviving all these years on around 210 MW power wheeled from the neighbouring states of Maharashtra and Karnataka, allocated by the central grid.
But being a mini power plant of only 48 MW, its commissioning may not help a big deal to the tourist state, which would be still short of around 90 MW as it requires unrestricted power of around 340 MW. The RSPCL is supplying 8 MW of it directly to the Mormugao Port Trust.
"But its commissioning would bring us to the stage of self-sufficiency", claimed chief minister Luizinho Faleiro, while speaking at the inaugural function on Monday. He prefers to put the figure of immediate demand to only 250 MW, so that he could now approach the high court to get the ban lifted on new power connections.
Despite knowing the poor power condition, the erstwhile Congress government had supplied around 100 MW of power to several power guzzling steel units in the state, compelling the court to intervene and put a virtual ban on new power connections since May last year.
The state, identified as one of the industrially backward ones, suffered tremendously due to this. No industry dares to come here due to power ban, though Goa offers five-year income tax holiday till March 2000 as well as 15-year sales tax holiday to attract new industries.
Dattaraj Salgaoncar, the RSPCL owner as well as president of the Goa Camber of Commerce and Industry, admits that his plant would provide some relief, but the demand and supply gap will not be fully bridged. He has now offered to expand his plant capacity with 100 MW more, decision on which is still pending.
The power situation in the state is so pathetic that even power minister Nirmala Sawant could not resist demanding more budgetary allocation for her department, at the inaugural function, while also requesting Faleiro not to divert her annual power revenue of around Rs 15 crore to other sectors. Upgradation of the T & D system is need of the hour, she insists.
Faleiro, while begging time to give a thought to it, still does not know how he is going to pay RSPCL's monthly bill of around Rs seven crore. Dr Pascol Noronha, MD of the RSPCL , is however confident that the government could generate more revenue with the help of quality power he would be supplying.
The RSPCL plant, located at Sancoale behind the Zuari Industries Ltd, would transmit its 40 MW power primarily to the Mormugao taluka, consisting of the port town of Vasco as well as Goa's hi-tech industrial estate situated at Verna.
Faleiro however appears to be firm on his view that power situation in the state would not stabilise unless he corporatises the power department, which basically looks after T & D and billing the customers, with private participation. Goa suffers T & D losses of over 25 per cent as the age-old overground lines have still not been replaced.
