Thaindian News

Agartala, March 18 (IANS) Heavy turbines for state-owned ONGC’s 726 MW power project in south Tripura are being brought to the state via Bangladesh. The turbines will be ferried from the Ashuganj river port in eastern Bangladesh to Tripura on big lorries, said an official here Friday.

The turbines will arrive next week to start generating electricity by this year-end.

“The over-dimensional heavy turbines would be carried from Ashuganj river port in Meghna river in eastern Bangladesh to Tripura on big lorries. The heavy consignments came to Ashuganj port last month by the water way from Haldia port in West Bengal,” an ONGC official told reporters.

He said India has developed a jetty in Ashuganj river port, 45 km from Agartala, and expanded the roads in Bangladesh and developed 31 bypasses across the border and inside Tripura to ferry the heavy equipments for the power project.

“The generation of electricity would start from the first unit (363 MW) of the power project, the biggest ever thermal power plant in northeast India, in December this year. The project would be fully operational by March next year,” the official said.

The state-owned ONGC’s biggest power project is being commissioned in south Tripura’s Palatana, about 60 km south of here, at a cost of Rs.9,000 crore.

The Bangladesh government had earlier agreed to allow India to use its waterways to transport the turbines and heavy machines for the power project, for which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had laid the foundation stone in October 2005.

The ONGC official said that carrying of the heavy equipment by surface within India through the mountainous northeastern states was extremely difficult. This led the Indian authorities to carry the machineries through Bangladesh.

“A consortium comprising of the US-based General Electric (GE) and India’s state-run BHEL has been awarded contract to supply the all-important gas turbines for the thermal power project,” he added.

According to ONGC officials, the state-run Power Grid Corp of India Ltd (PGCIL), ONGC Tripura Power Co Ltd (OTPC), a new company formed for commissioning the project, and the northeastern states would set up a 660-km transmission line at a cost of Rs.1,771 crore to hook Palatana with the national grid at Bongaigaon in western Assam.

The much expected commissioning of the power project, a co-generation waste heat recovery power plant and ONGC’s first major commercial project, has been delayed due to difficulties in transporting heavy turbines and machineries to south Tripura.