The Chhattisgarh State Power Generation Company ltd (CSPGCl) will be offering fly ash generated from its Marwa Thermal Power Plant (TPP) in Janjgir Chanpa district to the village self help groups (SHGs) for preparing bricks, official sources informed on Friday.
CGSPGCl also has prepared a plan to mine 5.6 million tonnes of coal per annum from Gidhmuri and Paturia coal blocks in Korba district once all statutory clearances are received, officials informed.
The area of the mining blocks is spread in 17.52 square kms with a mineable reserve of the block of 158.40 million tonnes of coal. Notably, CSPGCl will also be seeking diversion of forest land of Gidhmuri and Paturia captive Coal Block in Korba district.
Chhattisgarh has planned to achieve installed power generation capacity of 30,000 MW by 2017-18.
Chief Minister Raman Singh on March 31 last year had informed in the Chhattisgarh Assembly that the power generation from one unit of 1,000 MW under construction Madwa Thermal Power plant commenced commercial production on March 31, 2016 in Janjgir-Champa district after necessary technical checks.
Notably, CSPGCl is setting up the 2x500 MW Madwa Power Plant in Janjgir-Champa district.
The Chhattisgarh Government also announced recently that for development of power sector and strengthen infrastructure related
to it, a five-year Capital Investment Plan (CIP) has been chalked out.
Under this plan, funds to tune of around Rs 7,466 crore have been included and time duration for the visionary scheme has been fixed from 2016-17 to 2020-21.
The works for various schemes including general schemes such as Chief Minister Urban Electrification Scheme, Deendayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana, Mukhyamantri Manjra Tola Vidhyutikaran Yojana, EITC, IT projects, civil works and others will be carried out.
Along with extension of 4,500 km-long 33 kv line, as many as 290 substations of 33/11 kv will be developed in the State.
The State has recorded significant rise in number of power connection holders. During the time of Chhattisgarh’s formation, the State had around 18 lakh power connection holders which is now around 42 lakh.
Notably , Chhattisgarh will procure additional power from renewable energy sources to the tune of approximately 700 MW by FY 2018, officials informed.
With this the average power purchase cost for Chhattisgarh State Power Distribution Company ltd (CSPDCl) based on the above power availability will increase from 2.58 Rs /kWh in FY 2015-16 to 3.12 Rs /kWh in FY 2018, they informed.
The rates have been derived based on cost of power at existing rates and considering no escalation in power purchase cost since it is passing through for the distribution company.
Chhattisgarh is also planning to add 2,640 MW of additional renewable energy capacity by financial year 2018-19, officials informed.
The State currently has total renewable energy potential of 4,500 MW which includes solar (grid connected and roof top), wind biomass and small hydro.
The State has also planned to install solar powered pump sets for agriculture consumers which will benefit 16,000
consumers.
It may be recalled that there are significantly more number of villages which are to be electrified in Chhattisgarh using the off-grid (solar) mode than the grid-based (conventional power supply) mode.
As per the latest data available with the Union Ministry of Power, a total of 543 villages have to be electrified under ‘off-grid’ mode compared to 101 through the conventional power supply grid as on May 31, 2016.
The State has launched a ‘Solar Community Irrigation Project’ for drawing water extracted using solar pumps for supplying to the agricultural land of farmers across the State.
This apart, the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has fixed monthly power generation target of 1590 Million Units (MU) for April 2017 for five power stations of Chhattisgarh State Power Generation Company ltd (CSPGCl).
The power stations are —DSPM TPS, Korba-II, Korba-III, Korba West TPS, Marwa TPS, officials informed.
The Chhattisgarh Government is targetting 100 per cent household electrification by financial year 2017-18.
Notably, as on March 2015, Chhattisgarh had 63.6 households with electrification rate of 84.5 per cent, officials informed.
The State Government is attaching highest priority to power sector and is committed to provide full support to all utilities for ensuring quality power supply, officials informed.
Notably, Chhattisgarh is expected to add 14,140 MW of additional power generation capacity in its thermal plants between November 2015 to March 2022, according to the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) in its perspective transmission plan report prepared for 20 years ( 2014-34).
The objective of the plan is to present broad outlines of the requirement of additional transmission system in the Indian grid during the next two decades. The National Electricity Plan is under preparation u/S 3(4) of the Electricity Act 2003. This Plan would inter-alia give generation capacity addition for period up to 2021-22 based on integrated resource planning requirements for the country.
In the absence of the generation addition programme for 13th Plan period, an estimate was made considering the ongoing and likely capacity addition for the conventional generation projects.
Major high capacity transmission corridors have already been planned and which are under implementation would be sufficient to meet import/export of power among various regions in the year 2021-22.
This is based on the assumptions of load growth and generation capacity addition. Initially, the High Capacity Corridors from Chhattisgarh and Odisha were planned with reduced reliability due to uncertainties in generation addition by IPPs. The generations which were associated with these high capacity corridors are coming up in phased manner and till now no major constraint is being faced.
However, with the coming up of more generations, additional transmission strengthening may be required to meet the reliability criteria.
This would be taken up with firm status of new generation projects.
Chhattisgarh is also among seven states where mineral blocks have been auctioned resulting in total additional revenue of Rs 47,551 crore to the Central Government as on November 2016.
The other States where the mineral blocks were auctioned were Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha and Jharkhand, the Central Government has informed.
Notably, Chhattisgarh has collected Rs 712.04 crores under ‘District Mineral Foundations’ (DMFs) from all the 27 districts of the State where the Foundation had been established, the Central government has informed.
Notably, the Mines and Mineral (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 (MMDR Act, 1957) was amended through the MMDR Amendment Act, 2015.
One of the amendment provisions relates to introduction of section 9B which provides for the establishment of District Mineral Foundation (DMF) in any district affected by mining related operations.
The objective of the DMF is to work for the interest and benefit of persons, and areas affected by miningrelated operations. The Union Ministry of Mineshas also commenced the process for pilot launch ofMining Surveillance System (MSS) for keeping vigil on illegal mining of even minor minerals in Chhattisgarh besides two other States, officials informed.
The process is underway to launch a system for minor minerals in coalition with the State Governments. The States of Haryana, Telangana and Chhattisgarh have been selected for a pilot launch, officials informed.
Notably, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy andMines, Piyush Goyal had launched the Mining Surveillance System (MSS) in New Delhi recently.
The Union Ministry of Mines, through Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM), has developed the MSS, in coordination with Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics (BISAG), Gandhinagar and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), to use space technology for curbing illegal mining activity in the country.
Being developed under the Digital India Programme, MSS is one of the first such surveillance systems developed in the world using space technology. The current system of monitoring of illegalmining activity is based on local complaints and unconfirmed information. There is no robust mechanism to monitor the action taken on such complaints.
Notably, the Automatic software leveraging image processing technology generates automatic triggers of unauthorised activities. These triggers will be studied at a Remote Sensing Control Centre of IBM and then transmitted to the district level mining officials for field verification.
A check for illegality in operation is conducted and reported back using a mobile app.