Grant status of national importance to Raigarh-Pugalur-Thrissur system: SERF to Centre

Southern States Electricity Regulatory Commissions’ Forum has decided to once again demand the union Power Ministry to review the decision and declare Raigarh-Pugalur-Thrissur system as of national importance.

Hyderabad: With the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission(CERC) refusing to recognise Raigarh-Pugalur-Thrissur high-voltage double-circuit transmission system as of national importance, the Southern States Electricity Regulatory Commissions’ Forum (SERF) has decided to once again demand the union Power Ministry to review the decision and declare it as system of national importance.

The decision was taken during a meeting of the Electricity Regulatory Commissions (ERCs) of Southern States held here recently. Last September, the CERC while refusing the demand to declare the Raigarh-Pugalur-Thrissur corridor under national components on par with the other two corridors, stated that a transmission system being of national importance and a transmission system considered as a National Component were two different aspects and rejected the proposal.

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Kerala ERC chairman TK Jose had raised the issue of Raigarh-Pugalur-Thrissur corridor during the meeting and the SERC unanimously had agreed to demand declaration of it as of National Importance.

If the project was declared as part of the national component, the cost of the project would be shared by all the States and it would bring down the yearly transmission charges collected from the Southern States.

The 1,850km-long 800 KV Raigarh-Pugalur ultra-high-voltage DC (UHVDC) overhead transmission line originates from Raigarh in Chhattisgarh and passes through Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana to terminate at Pugalur in Tamil Nadu. The HVDC link transmits enough electricity to meet the electricity needs of more than 80 million people in South India.

Karnataka ERC Chairman P Ravi Kumar informed that there was a burden of carrying cost resulting from safeguard duty and GST on the consumers for the investments upto commissioning date. “This is impacting the tariff on the end consumer, which needs to be considered for uniform policy of levy and non-levy,”he observed.

Tamil Nadu ERC Chairman M Chandrasekaran stated that the installation of Residual Current Circuit Breaker for service connections has been made mandatory to save human life from electric shock or Leakages. Capacitors in agricultural service connections were installed to reduce system losses and also in improving system efficiency and voltage profile, he said.