AGARTALA, July 19 (TIWN): On yet another hit to the power surplus state of North East Tripura the 100 MW gas-based Monarchak power plants in West Tripura district, about 50 km from here have undergone complete shutdown due to crisis of gas from ONGC. “The plant which was opened spending huge amount would face a hefty loss now as there is no further change of gas supply to the plant,” said a reliable source of Monarchak plant on Sunday.,The source informed that the management would soon take up the matter with the ministry to take a stock of the situation as the plant would face a heavy loss in the coming days. On July 11 the ONGC held a meeting with the plant management committee here in Agartala taking up the issue of the crisis of gas. ONGC had assured that by mid August they would try to resume its gas supply after recovering their old gas wells, said source. He said that as per the agreement, ONGC is supposed to supply 5 MMSCM per day gas to the plant but the supply has been stopped for the past few days. The source also added, “Though ONGC had assured us to resume gas supply but there is very less chance as the current situation of ONGC is not up to the mark and had lead our plant in danger.” He said that at present the entire system is shutdown due to the suspension of the gas.

Tripura unit of ONGC was supplying gas for the project run by North East Electrical Power Corporation (NEEPCO), a government undertaking.  

Here it may be noted that TSECL had already inked power purchase agreement with both OTPC and NEEPCO to buy allocated power but this has now turned bleak with power shortage here.

Besides, according to the source of ONGC it has been learnt that ONGC had been trying hard enough to resume its gas supply to the plant. The source said that ONGC is eyeing forward to recover the old wells and dispatch the gas from those.

Earlier the TSECL had a tug of war with NEEPCO as the body was reluctant to purchase power from Monarchak due to high power cost as compared to Palatana OTPC plant. At present the cost is Rs. 4 per unit of power, which has led its power to be futile for the TSECL, a state government undertaking body.