State deputy chief minister and energy minister Gopinath Munde announced this in the state council on Friday in his reply to a question by Chhagan Bujbal (Congress), Vyankappa Patki (JD) and others. He said that district central cooperative banks from Pune, Nagpur, Wardha, Chandrapur and Jalgaon have agreed to give aid worth Rs 25 crore each.

Munde said that 110 sub-stations with a capacity of 33 kv would be set up in various parts of the state, adding that 100 such were already established in 1997-98 and 90 in 1996-97. He told the house that efforts would also be made to set up additional sub-stations with capacities of 400 kv and 500 kv. Work on installing a high tension line between Chandrapur andPadgha was also in progress.

Munde said that the first phase of 715 mw of Dabhol Power Company would be commissioned by the end of September while financial closure for the second phase of 1,300 mw would be over by October. He said that the centre has promised to give a counter-guarantee to the 1,080 mw thermal-based power project by Ispat Group at Bhadravati and 410 mw naphtha-based power project by Reliance Industries at Patalganga by the end of this month.

To a supplementary by Arun Mehta (Ind), Munde said that the Bhadravati project would be completed in two phases. The first would be commissioned in 36 months while the second would take another eight months. Munde said that there was a power shortage during March, April and May as there was a deficit of 500 mw to 1,000 mw compared with peak demand.