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Delay likely in revamp of Durgapur Projects

Our Bureau

KOLKATA, July 23

ALTHOUGH West Bengal has made significant headway in its power reforms programme, even unbundling its electricity board, it would be a while before it is able to restructure the State-owned Durgapur Projects Ltd (DPL).

Stating this the West Bengal Power Minister, Mr Mrinal Banerjee, told Business Line that segregating the functions of a multi-utility outfit such as DPL was proving to be tricky.``It needs to be handled with care,'' he said.

Founded in 1961, DPL owns and operates six thermal generation units with an installed capacity of 390 MW, selling its entire generation to the West Bengal State Electricity Board (WBSEB).

Besides power units, DPL has coke oven plants as well as facilities for supplying water for industrial and domestic use in and around Durgapur. It has on rolls over 6,000 employees.

Mr Banerjee said that it was proving difficult to transfer these units to the West Bengal Power Development Corporation (WBPDCL ). to whom the two thermal units of WBSEB were transferred earlier this month, for several reasons.

First, the difficult task of identifying the number of employees who would be affected in this process, has not been completed. Second and the more important reason, is the State Power Department's eagerness to get DPL back on the rails, before embarking on a major exercise such as handover of the units.

DPL's accumulated loss exceeds Rs 300 crores and the Government had to infuse it with capital in 1994-95 to keep it out of the ambit of the BIFR.

These losses are on account of the coke oven plants as well as the old thermal units, which were commissioned between 1960 and 1985. On both these fronts, action has been initiated in order to turnaround DPL, sources said.

A Rs 300-crore renovation and modernisation programme financed by the Power Finance Corporation is being implemented to improve the generation of the power plants.

``We do not want to do any thing to disturb the current pattern at DPL at this juncture,'' the Minister said adding that DPL's revival was of higher priority, now.