RAJAHMUNDRY, December 25: The 60 MW capacity steam turbo set of the second phase of stage-II of the country's first gas-based power project was synchronised with the state electricity board on Tuesday.

The project is situated at Vijjeswaram, 30 km from here, in west Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh.

Disclosing this to newsmen at the power station last evening, chief engineer of the project Y Anjaneyulu said the second stage, with a total capacity of 172 MW, was completed on time at a cost of Rs 434 crore as against the initial estimation of Rs 471 crore.

General manager of the project N Satyanarayana claimed that the project was completed without cost escalation and thus, conceptually and operationally, it became a trend setter in the power sector.

The first stage of 100 MW was completed at a cost of Rs 141 crore, and was commissioned in 1992, he added. APSEB's former chief engineer Y Subba Rao who is currently adviser to the Andhra Pradesh Gas Power Corporation Ltd (APGPCL), which executed the project, said that as against the present trend of spending Rs 4 crore for installing one MW of power by almost all the fast track power projects in the country, the Vijjeswaram project was constructed at a cost of Rs 2.51 crore per mega watt of power installation.

He said in the entirely natural gas-based first stage, the cost of production of one unit of power was only Rs 1.34. However, in the second stage, which would use natural gas and naptha, the cost of production of one unit of power would be Rs 2.

The cost of production of power in the second stage would come down with the use of natural gas now available in abundance in the nearby Krishna-Godavary basin, he added.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.