India Railways to buy power from RGPPL for five year: Piyush Goyal

Kolkata: Union minister of state (independent charge) for Power, Coal and Renewable Energy, Piyush Goel addresses at a media conference during inauguration of "CII National Council meeting" in Kolkata on Tuesday. PTI Photo (PTI1_3_2017_000149B)

Indian Railways has agreed to continue electricity purchase from Ratnagiri Gas and Power Pvt Ltd (RGPPL), commonly known as Dabhol project, for a period of five years beginning April 1, Parliament was informed today.

"Railways has agreed to continue to purchase 500 MW power from RGPPL power plant from April, 1, 2017 for a period of five years," Power Minister Piyush Goyal said in a written reply to Lok Sabha today.

According to the reply, the Maharashtra government has agreed, in principle, for granting waiver of state transmission charges and transmission losses and also waiver of VAT on gas purchase by the RGPPL.

The minister stated that RGPPL has started generation of power under the scheme of utilisation of gas-based power generation capacity for 2015-16 and 2016-17.

He further told the House that the total debt of RGPPL is about Rs 8,906 crore and the government has taken several steps for revival of the project.

The minister listed steps including the decision to demerge the Power Block and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal into two separate entities.

Besides the banks/financial institutions have agreed to restructure the debt.

The gas supply to RGPPL at a firm price for a five year period has been agreed by the GAIL, the minister said.