NEW DELHI: The Delhi government has to depend on costly gas- based power as well as spot purchase at high market rate as the NTPC has halved power supply to the city from the usual 4000 MW, Delhi Power Minister Satyendar Jain said on Monday.
Most of the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) plants are running at 55 percent capacity as their coal stocks are enough for one-two days, he claimed.
Delhi purchases most of its power from NTPC but supply has been halved, Jain told reporters.
"NTPC which supplies us 4000 MW power has reduced it to half currently. This has led us to generation of power through gas that costs Rs 17. 25 per unit," he said.
Delhi has three gas-based plants with a total capacity of 1900 MW, he said.
"The Centre has terminated the quota of cheap gas. We have to purchase it and the generation cost is Rs 17.50 which is not sustainable. Also, we have to resort to spot purchase of power due to the crisis at a high rate of Rs 20 per unit," said the Power minister.
Jain said the Centre should accept that coal crisis and address it instead of getting in denial mode.
Chief ministers of many states including Yogi Adityanath of Uttar Pradesh have written to the prime minister on the issue.
Punjab is also facing power cuts, Jain added.
Several states have warned of a power outage in the wake of a severe coal shortage, but the coal ministry has asserted that sufficient dry fuel is available in the country to meet the demand of electricity generating plants and has dismissed as "entirely misplaced" any fear of disruption in power supply.
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