President fortified power sector

Power and Energy Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka said the Norochcholai coal power project was a tangible reality of the Mahinda Chintana that has manifested itself on the ground. He said the Government's aim was to make Sri Lanka a centre of power generation on the road to making it the Wonder of Asia.

The Minister was speaking at a ceremony after firing the boilers of the Norochcholai coal power plant Wednesday. He said the country's power generation would be stabilized once the power produced at Norochcholai is added to the national grid.

He said President Mahinda Rajapaksa took bold measures after 2005 to establish a sound base from strengthening the country's power sector. This is evident by his decision to construct three mega power plants. The Minister also gave an assurance that the people would no longer have to live in the dark in the next decade adding that he would increase the efficiency of the CEB ensuring a better service to the public. He noted that the inability of the Government owned power plants to generate adequate electricity to meet the demand compelled the CEB to purchase electricity from private companies.

The Minister said that although the first phase of the Norochcholai power plant was scheduled to be completed by May 2012 this has been achieved today with 300 mega watts of electricity being added to the national grid.

He said the CEB was planning to sell a unit of electricity at Rs 8.04 from next year.

The Minister said even with the subsidized fuel supply from the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, the CEB had to suffer a loss of Rs 4.50 on a unit of electricity.

In all the country had lost Rs 72 billion since 1990 due to purchase of electricity from the private sector to tide over the deficiency from the Government owned power plants. He said the country had some 20 million electricity consumers with each of them paying about Rs 3,500 to cover the loss. This is leaving out what the CEB had to pay.

Minister Ranawaka said the Norochcholai and Upper Kotmale power plants would help cut down on these losses incurred as a result of electricity purchased from the private sector. The Minister also allayed fears on any adverse effect on the environment due to the firing of coal saying that only a particular variety of coal with low sulphur content would be used to control carbon emission.