BHUBANESWAR: With the State Government’s target to construct 500 sub-stations of 33/11KV capacity in the current fiscal appearing remote, the Odisha Power Transmission Corporation Ltd (OPTCL) has been asked to complete the projects by 2017.
As failure of the distribution companies to upgrade the power distribution infrastructure resulted in high technical and commercial loss, the State Government decided in 2013 to construct additional 500 sub-stations under Odisha Distribution System Strengthening Programme (ODSSP) with an investment of Rs 2,600 crore.
Apart from addressing the low voltage problem, the new sub-stations will cater to future load in view of increasing number of consumers and rural electrification programme. The Government had made a provision of Rs 200 crore in 2013-14 and Rs 150 crore in 2014-15 for ODSSP.
However, the total project cost was revised to Rs 4,600 crore to make it more resilient to natural disasters. Having learnt lessons from the cyclone Phailin that battered power infrastructure, the State Government took a re-look into the scope of work initially undertaken under the project. The programme was reviewed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here on Thursday.
Sources said 300 sub-stations taken up in two phases are under execution. Officials of OPTCL, the nodal agency implementing the project, informed the meeting that the balance 190 sub-stations will be constructed in third phase.
As per the original schedule, 178 sub-stations were to be constructed in the first year and 165 sub-stations in the second year. Slow progress of the project was attributed to delay in alienation of land by district administration concerned to the Energy Department.
Currently, the State has 588 sub-stations with 193 sub-stations of 33 KV capacity separated by a distance of more than 30 km, resulting in huge transmission loss.
OPTCL officials informed that plans are afoot to add 88 more grid sub-stations to existing 117. Besides, 26 new transmission lines will be connected to the proposed grid sub-stations with an investment of Rs 5,711 crore.
According to the Energy Department estimate, total power availability in the State will be over 32,000 million unit (MU) in 2016-17 against its requirement of 29,376 MU.