By IANS,
Mumbai : Spelling good news for power-starved Maharashtra, the centre agreed to give 700 MW extra power to the state, including 300 MW from Wednesday night, an official said here late in the evening.
The NTPC’s Chhattisgarh supply centre will start supplying 200 MW from midnight to the state, following a meeting with central ministers and officials by Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Power Minister Ajit Pawar in the national capital in the evening.
Union Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde has allocated another 100 MW from the central pool, using his special powers, which will start flowing from midnight Wednesday.
Another 200 MW will be made available to the state from the Vindhyanchal centre from Tursday midnight, followed by 100 MW from Gandhar centre starting next Tuesday and Korba station from Wednesday, the official added.
The state will be able to ease the power crunch by another 1,000 MW in the next ten days by other measures which will be implemented.
Thse include availability of two more rakes (train loads) of coal from the centre which are expected to arrive in the next couple of days. This will directly enable power generation of up to 800 MW.
The centre has also decided to provide 0.9 MMSCMD gas to the Dabhol power station which will help produce another 200 MW power over the next one week to ten days.
Since this week, the state electricity authorities have implemented drastic load-shedding ranging from 3-7 hours in urban centres and 11-13 hours in urban areas, besides 16-hours for industries from Wednesday, and a weekly ‘no power day’ plus 16-hour daily power cut for the agricultural sector from Thursday, spelling misery for all sections of the people.