PALATANA/UDAIPUR, November 21 (TIWN): Prior to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's scheduled visit to Tripura (likely to be on 29th November) for inaugurating the Commercial Generation from 363.3 MW Unit-II of Combined Cycle Gas Turbine(CCGT) Thermal Power Project at Palatana during his ensuing visit to North Eastern states, Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum (MoP), and Natural Gas, Govt of India Sourav Chandra and CMD of Oil & Natural Gas Corporation Ltd(ONGC) D K Sarraf is ) will visit Tripura today. According to a top level ONGC official , both the top officials will be accompanied by a dozen of executives in a special flight to review the preparation and functioning of the second unit of 726.6 MW power project in Gomati District of Tripura. They will return for Delhi in the afternoon. Prime Minister Modi will finalise his Tripura programme only after getting report from the Petroleum Ministry,

 A top official in the Petroleum Ministry said  that the  Centre is trying avoid any kind of last minute troubles  like the  Unit-I of Palatana, which was inaugurated on 21st June 2013  by the  President Pranab Mukherjee.

As of now it is scheduled that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will arrive in Tripura by a special flight in the morning of 29th November and from Agartala Airport he will straightway go to Palatana by a helicopter and after inaugurating the COG from the  plant  he will travel to Assam. 
     Last year President Pranab Mukherjee dedicated the Unit I terming it as 'the world's largest clean energy plant and Northeast's biggest  Combined Cycle Gas Turbine  Power Project - but Instead of generating power after inauguration of  1st unit of Palatana,, Unit I went shutdown on same day due to serious technical faults.Tripura govt and ONGC were embarrassed due to faulty planning of Palatana Unit I  as  gas supply line of 1st unit showed major problems just on the day of it's formal commissioning by President of India(21st June). ONGC Tripura Power Company (OTPC) had failed to bring adequate manpower to handle such  mega project and indeed  cast uncertainty even after spending of Rs 10,000 Crore. OTPC Managing Director S K Dube was accused of poor managerial performance, as he used to sit in  New Delhi Corporate Office and never paid dueattention the project deserved during Unit I of Palatana Project.  

But, in the inauguration of  Unit-II,  the  Ministry of Petroleum is not going to take any risk or may not even  believe on the report submitted by OTPC MD  S K Dube and his team and sending Secretary to review the project at the highest level. 
Bharat Heavy Electrical Ltd (BHEL), the technical authority of the OTPC project  declared that the Unit-II is capable of producing full capacity commercial power generation ; -  experts of  Union Petroleum Ministry will test all technical details of the second turbine of the mega thermal power plant, the biggest of such kind in the entire North -Eastern region. .
On the other hand , Chief Minister Manik Sarkar held a series of preparatory meetings to review preparations leading to the high profile visit like Narendra Modi. Meanwhile, the Indo-Bangla and Indo-Myanmar international borders were put on high alert. Security personnel from BSF and Assam Rifles were kept on  security along the border and maintain vigil at the highest level . 
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Tripura on November 29 morning then to Assam on 29th afternoon, Manipur on November 30, Nagaland on December 1 and Arunachal Pradesh on December 2.