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Power Board to Engage Private Players

  • In a bid to reduce transmission loss, the Jharkhand State Electricity Board (JSEB) has planned to develop Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Dhanbad as pilot towns, where private players will be engaged in building infrastructure and power supply.JSEB will announce floating Notice Inviting Tenders (NIT) by the end of this month, seeking invitation from franchises willing to take up power distribution projects. Paper work for commissioning of the 20-month project will be over by June, ground work will begin after that.

  • The Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) has agreed to provide Rs 1310 crore in soft loan to JSEB for the project. "At present, the transmission loss is around 40% and we aim to reduce it to 17% . The proposed pilot project will help in reducing the loss by installing a sound transmission jacket," said JSEB chairman SN Verma. He said the proposed project will be extended to the rest of the state after the pilot project is completed. He was talking to newsmen on the sidelines of the CII Jharkhand-sponsored seminar on 'Challenges and Opportunities in the Power Sector' here on Monday.

  • "We will adopt the Noida model (for transmission regulation) as this model has been effective in reducing transmission loss by 20%," said Verma. He said power generation is an issue in the state, but poor transmission infrastructure has only aggravated the situation.The chairman said two years from now, the state will be in a position to produce 300MW of power. Therefore comprehensive structural changes have become all the more important for supply of quality power.He said, at present, the annual electricity consumption in the state is around 1600 MW, but there are several areas, i.e. over 2000 villages, where there is no infrastructure. So there is also an uncalculated demand. "On an average, the total requirement stands somewhere between 2100MW to 2500MW, including the hidden demand," said Verma.Energy department principal secretary Vimal Kirti Singh, who was also present at the seminar, said the policy of competitive tariff bidding will help in streamlining the power sector in the long run.

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