L&T shoots another missive to over power

Hyderabad: The tussle between Hyderabad Metro Rail consortium Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited shows no signs of subsiding. The latest source of friction stems from the construction giant's demand for subsidy in the auxiliary power allocation.

According to authorities, the power consumption by Metro Rail has two major components. For the train services, the power used is for traction purpose and for auxiliary services (at stations, depots, Operation Control Centres etc).

As per the power concessionaire agreement, the government decided to provide concession to the metro only on the traction front. The total consumption per day for both these services is estimated to be about 7.63 lakh units.

The officials said that this energy consumption has been arrived at after taking about 30 per cent saving in power consumption due to incorporation of sophisticated 'regenerative' braking system in Metro trains and other energy conservation measures adopted.

The L&T had recently written to the HMR, seeking subsidy in the entire power supply. However, the rules do not permit the government to provide subsidy in the auxiliary front.

For the power supply to the Metro, government had assured to provide lines 132/25 voltage power lines for traction services and 33/415 voltage power supply lines for the auxiliary services.

The government also assured that the power supplied to the Metro would be charged lesser and the expenditure to power lines would also be borne by the government.

HMRL Managing Director N V S Reddy confirmed that they had received letter from L&T in this regard. He said that the project needs to be commissioned first for the government to consider any such request. As far as the traction services are concerned, the government would pay the railway tariff.

As per the concessionaire agreement, the government cannot give subsidy for auxiliary services which are charged as per commercial tariff, said Reddy. The confrontation between the L&T and HMRL has been there for a long time.

HMR authorities said that the L&T has been shooting off letters to the government on various issues and once it had asked the government to take over the project, which had made the government to intervene.

The L&T again resorted to write letter on providing lands in prime locations even as the civil society members argue that the HMR got 56.39 acres of excess land in prime areas in Hyderabad.