First unit of Telangana Super Thermal Power Plant to be commissioned by March

Telangana STPP of NTPC at Ramagundam is in advanced stages of completion and is likely to be commissioned before the end of the current financial year.

Hyderabad: The Telangana Super Thermal Power Plant (STPP) of NTPC at Ramagundam is in advanced stages of completion and is likely to be commissioned before the end of the current financial year (2022-23). The project got delayed due to disruptions caused by Covid-19 pandemic and the re-engineering of the boiler as per new environment norms among others.

TRS MPs B Venkatesh Netha, Kavitha Malothu and G Ranjith Reddy raised the issue during Question Hour in the Lok Sabha on Thursday and wanted the Centre to furnish the reasons for delay in conducting the trial run of the Telangana STPP Station-I of 800 MW which was to be conducted in May 2020.

In response, union Minister of State for Power and Renewable Energy RK Singh said the first phase of the Telangana STPP (2×800 MW) has been delayed by 31 months with respect to present commissioning target. The actual expenditure incurred and accrued till date was within the approved project cost of Rs 10,997.7 crore.

The Minister explained that the first unit of the project was under an advanced stage of commissioning. After completion of steam blowing and related advance commissioning activities, the normalisation process is on. It is likely to be commissioned by the end of this fiscal.

Under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, the Centre promised to establish of a 4,000 MW (5 x 800 MW) super critical thermal power plant at Ramagundam. Further, it was mandated to supply 85 per cent of the energy generated to Telangana. The State government has already requested the NTPC and the union Power Ministry to allocate the entire power generated at this power plant to Telangana to meet the increasing demand for energy in the State, but a decision is yet to be taken on it.