Power Engineers unions oppose joint venture for thermal power plant in Ramagundam

The Association during its general body meeting on Sunday, strongly opposed the joint venture and urged the government to hand over construction of the plant exclusively to GENCO.

Hyderabad: A day after the State government gave the nod for the construction of an 800 MW supercritical thermal power station in Ramagundam of Peddapalli district, Telangana State Power Engineer Association has expressed displeasure over the government’s decision to construct the plant in a joint venture between TGGENCO and Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL).

The Association during its general body meeting on Sunday, strongly opposed the joint venture and urged the government to hand over construction of the plant exclusively to GENCO. The members claimed that the Singareni was basically a coal mining company and it did not have expertise on constructing power plants, hence involving it in the construction work of the power plant was not advisable.

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The construction and operation and maintenance of all the power plants in the State, except Singareni power plant at Jaipur are being done by Genco. It has efficient engineers with a lot of experience in constructing power plants.

The Telangana State Power Employees Joint Action Committee (TGPEJAC) has also urged the State government not to allocate the construction work of the proposed power station in place of RTS-B station in Ramagundam to Singareni and to instead hand over the contract to TGGENCO.

On the matter of funds for the construction of the power plant, the union leaders said Debt:Equity ratio for the construction of the project would be in the 80:20 ratio and equity of Genco would be used to take up the project. Apart from this the GENCO had to receive about Rs.9,500 crore from power utilities for supplying electricity, which could be used to construct the plant, they said.

Besides, the TGGENCO had to receive Rs.2,478 crore from APGENCO, Rs. 914 crore from APTransco and Rs. 3,392 crore from Andhra Pradesh power companies in relation to pension trust of electricity employees, they said.

The State government on Saturday issued orders asking TGGENCO and SCCL to form a join venture and construct the thermal plant at Ramagundam. . The government has asked TGGENCO and SCCL authorities to work out the modalities to form a joint venture to construct the power plant. The TGGENCO has been directed to prepare a Detailed Project Report(DPR) within one month and submit it to the government.