Saturday, April 30, 2011

Fault in Baglihar Power Project

Though the electricity requirement is going up considerably due to rise in temperature and loss to the State exchequer is increasing by Rs 1.15 crore every day yet one unit of Baglihar Hydroelectric Project remained non-functional despite the lapse of two weeks and uncertainty still prevailing over the time-frame within which the snag would be rectified and unit made functional.

Official sources told News Agency that engineers of the Germany based company M/s Voith Siemens, which had carried out electrical works of the first ever State-owned mega power project, has not conveyed any time-frame to the Jammu and Kashmir State Power Development Corporation (JKSPDC) and National Hydroelectric Project Corporation (NHPC) for the rectification of the fault.

"The engineers of M/s Voith Siemens have only conveyed that they have detected the fault and will start rectifying the same within next one or two days", they said, adding "the material which is required to make the stator core winding has reached project site only this evening while as the machine to be used is the process is still in transit".

Fortunately, both the material and machine were available at Karchum Wangthoo project in Himachal Pradesh where M/s Voith Siemens is also carrying out electrical works, they said, adding "had this been not available at the upcoming project in Himachal Pradesh it would have taken more than a month for the company to export the same from Germany".

To a question about what led to the snag in the one unit of the project, they said, "either any metal or screw seems to have got struck in the stator core winding leading to earth fault", adding "M/s Voith Siemens has not conveyed anything vis-à-vis fault in writing to Jammu and Kashmir State Power Development Corporation (JKSPDC) so far but they will have to share information with the Corporation prior to leaving the project site".

Due to non-functioning of the 150 Mega Watt unit of the project, the State exchequer is suffering a loss of Rs 1.15 crore every day and during the past two weeks, the loss to the exchequer on account of non-generation of 32 lakh units of electricity every day has gone up to Rs 16.12 crore, sources said, adding "as JKSPDC as well as NHPC are groping in dark about further time frame to be taken in rectification of fault the losses will go up further".

"What to talk of losses, the non-functioning of one unit is also leading to shortfall in availability of electricity and Power Development Department has started feeling the pinch of the same especially when the temperature has started rising", sources said.

"No doubt the fault will get rectified but the million dollar question is whose negligence led to the same", sources said, adding "it is the duty of the Jammu and Kashmir State Power Development Corporation (JKSPDC) to find out what and where the things went wrong so that recurrence of such avoidable faults could be checked in future".

When contacted, Chief Engineer (Generation) of Baglihar, T K Koul confirmed that rectification of fault has yet to be started by M/s Voith Siemens. "Their engineers are likely to start the same within a day or two and it is difficult to specify any time-frame for the completion of work", he added.

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