REC to provide Rs 24,000 Cr funds for Telangana

Hyderabad, March 21 (INN): The Rural Electrical Corporation (REC) Limited, a Government of India Enterprise, has come forward to fund to a tune of Rs. 24,000 Crores to Telangana State GENCO power projects of 6280 MW installed capacity.

They are 800 MW at KTPS, 1080 MW at Bhadradri in Manugur of Khammam District and 4400 MW at Damaracherla in Nalgonda District totaling 6280 MW.

A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between REC represented by its Chairman & Managing Director Rajeev Sharma and TSGENCO represented by its Chairman & Managing Director D. Prabhakar Rao in the presence of Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao in the Camp Office of CM today afternoon coinciding the Telugu New Year's day Ugadi. REC is a Navaratna Enterprise and provides financial assistance for rural electrification as well as all types of power generation, transmission and distribution projects. With this the taking off of 6280 MW of power production as mandated by Honorable CM, the financial closure has been achieved.

In addition to Rs 24, 000 Crores of funding from REC, earlier, the Power Finance Corporation (PFC) agreed to fund Rs. 15, 000 Crores for the same projects and TS GENCO will fund Rs. 3000 Crores totaling Rs. 42, 000 Crores. This apart, NTPC as mandated by Government of India will be spending Rs. 24, 000 Crores for its 4000 MW Project and Singareni Rs. 4000 Crores. Another Rs. 21, 500 Crores will be invested in solar projects and evacuation and transmission lines parallely. Thus the total investment for 10, 280 MW of power plants in the next four years will amount to Rs. 91, 500 Crores.

Briefing this to REC Chairman and Managing Director, the Chief Minister has said that as part of this gigantic activity there are two important components. One, he said, is the Resource mobilization for basic infrastructure, township development, water supply to plants, train track for coal supply etc.,. With the funding from REC, PFC and GENCO the financial part has been achieved. The second important component said the CM is acquiring land for the plants. For this purpose, for the Bhadradri power plant of 1080 MW at Manugur in Khammam District, 1134 Acres of land has been acquired and environment clearances are being obtained. This plant's requirement of 1.2 TMC of water will be met from Godavari River. BHEL has already started work there. For 800 MW of plant at KTPS in the existing land works have commenced. For the remaining 4400 MW out of 6280 MW 10, 000 Acres of land has been acquired at Damaracherla in Nalgonda District and environment clearances are being obtained. 4.6 TMC of water required for this plant will be drawn from the nearby Krishna River.

With regards the 4000 MW of plants to be executed by NTPC, work has already commenced on 1600 MW plant at Ramagundam. For the remaining 2400 MW work will be shortly commenced at Damaracherla in Nalgonda District. Thus in Damaracherla, altogether 6800 MW of power plants will come up. This becomes the Ultra Mega Power Plant and there is no such plant in the entire country anywhere. This is a unique honor that has gone to Nalgonda District.

REC Chairman Rajeev Sharma at the request of the Chief Minister reduced the rate of interest on its funding by 0.5 % compared to other states as a special case. This will reduce the burden on TS GENCO by about Rs. 600 Crores.

Arvind Kumar, Secretary Energy, Bhupal Reddy, Special Secretary to CM, Ajeet Agarwal, Director Finance, REC, PJ Thakkar Director Technical REC, N. Venkatesan Chief Project Manager REC and G. Raghumareddy CMD TSSPDCL were present when the MoU was signed.

The Chief Minister reviewed the power supply position also with CMD Transco and GENCO and CMD TSSPDCL and directed them to ensure that there is no load relief in the state.