NTPC has asked both Delhi Vidyut Board (DVB) as well as the Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Board (UPSEB), who owe NTPC a whopping amount of Rs 1,100 crore and Rs 1,775 crore respectively, to clear their dues or enhance the letter of credit (LC) limits, to avoid a power blackout as done in the case of Bihar and West Bengal.

Official sources told The Financial Express that NTPC has dashed a letter to the UP government asking it to raise the LC limit to Rs 125 crore if UP wanted to avoid power cut situation.

In addition to this, sources said that NTPC is also in the process of chalking out details for acquiring the UPSEB owned Tanda and Pareecha power plants if the state government is not in a position to clear its outstandings of Rs 1,775 crore.

Earlier, NTPC had acquired UPSEB's Unchahar power station to offset the balance during 1989-90. Afterthe transfer of the plant to the NTPC, the capacity of the plant was enhanced to 840mw from the then 420mw and since then the plant has been functioning at 80 per cent plant load factor (PLF) capacity.

The Delhi Vidyut Board (DVB), as per sources, has been given one month's time to clear NTPC's dues. In a meeting held last week with the DVB chairman Virender Singh, the NTPC chief Rajendra Singh has warned DVB of an action against the board after 30 days.

Singh is learnt to have told almost all the defaulting SEBs that NTPC cannot do business without being paid for it and that similar actions will be initiated against them in the event of `non-payment of bills'.

Sources disclosed that in a meeting held with the UPSEB chairman GP Singh on October 15 with NTPC chief, the former has assured that a decision to raise the LC limit will be taken by October 15.

The NTPC chairman is also learnt to have written a detailed letter to the chief secretary of the Uttar Pradesh, Yogendra Narayan recently, requestingto arrange the payments of overdues.

Sources said that a situation of another acquisition is quite strong, as even if the LC limit is revisd by the USEB, the dues of NTPC will still be on a higher side.

``Even if NTPC acquires the Tanda power plant, UPSEB will still not be able to clear dues of NTPC. If both the 440mw Tanda and 220mw Pareecha plants are transfered to the NTPC, the power situation will considerably be improved and the outstandings against the UPSEB would also be cleared,'' the sources maintained.

Delhi has failed to pay the dues for the last nine months while the stipulated payment period was only two months. Even Uttar Pradesh has not paid its dues for nine months and may invite a similar treatment from NTPC.

It may be noted here that Delhi receives about 1000mw of power from NTPC managed power stations which include the 720mw Badarpur power station, Dadri, Anta in Rajasthan, Unchahar, Rihand and Singrauli.