Yesterday, a report said a 105MW power plant in Noapara, Jessore is on the verge of failing. Authorities claim it’s because of the furnace oil crisis, but the news cited sources saying it was also due to faulty machinery. They have only been adding 6MW a day, although the plant authorities claim the figure to be 10-12MW. In another news the government approved five new coal power plants. Now, the question is what is ensuring that they would not cite some similar excuse if they fail to produce enough electricity?
There have been many reports in the past of such power plants failing to produce electricity at the stated level. The reason was mostly use of faulty or substandard machineries in the plants. Now, if that trend is followed we would face similar troubles in the not-so-near future.
The government agreed to buy power from these newly approved plants at a fixed rate, but what’s the point of getting to buy only 6MW when we are in dire need of the whole 100 of them. The country can do without quick fixes now because we need long-term solutions as the demand for electricity would go beyond the five-year terms our politicians and bureaucrats think in.
The government should take into account all factors such as future availability of fuel for the plants and properly assess their feasibility before approving them.
There are enough capable minds working behind the approval of these projects to foresee such crises. It should also have a stipulation in place that if the private plants fail to meet a certain level of production per day, then the government would not be buying from them. That should put some pressure on the private plants to operate properly. The people are paying for this electricity, directly and indirectly; it’s high time that their money is spent in much wiser ways.