To meet electricity demand of Silchar, new grid sub-station to come up at Arcuttipore

way2barak, Dec.23: To meet up the power demand of the Silchar area, a Grid Substation is planned to be constructed at Udharbond (Arcuttipore) area under Assam Intra State Transmission System Enhancement Project-Phase-2. This was informed by Minister, Power (E.) Department, Nandita Gorlosa during the ongoing winter session of Assam Legislative Assembly on Friday, while replying to a query of MLA Silchar Dipayan Chakraborty.

Dipayan Chakraborty asked, “Will the Minister of Power be pleased to state: a) Considering the increase in population within Silchar Constituency, resulted to high increase in demand for the power, is there any plan of the Government to set up new grid substation to meet the increased power demand of the people of Silchar Legislative Constituency ? b) If, yes, kindly furnish the details.”

Replying to his query, Minister, Power (E.) Department, Nandita Gorlosa said, “Yes, to meet up the power demand of the Silchar area, a 132/33kV, 2X50MVA Grid Substation is planned to be constructed at Udharbond (Arcuttipore) area under Assam Intra State Transmission System Enhancement Project-Phase-2 with external financial support from Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

While elaborating the details, the minister added, “This 132/33kv, 2 x50 MVA substation at Arcuttipore will feed power to the upcoming 33/11KV distribution substation of APDCL at Rangpore which will meet up load demand of East part of Silchar town benefitting around 10,000 consumers (including tea garden workers) and 10-15 MW will be catered to the industries nearby. Besides this, the redundancy of the existing 132/33KV Grid Substation at Srikona (Silchar) and the 132/33kv Grid Substation at Panchgram will be increased as the new substation will be connected to both substations.”

She also stated, “This arrangement will reduce the power interruption due to load shedding in the Silchar area and improve the voltage profile. At present, preliminary activities for project readiness for the fulfillment of the loan signing criteria for Phase 2 of the AIIB loan as stipulated by the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), GoI is in process. The land acquisition process for the new substation is in the advanced stage of completion. Tender preparation work for the construction of the substation along with the line is in process. On completion of the aforementioned work, tender for the substation shall be floated and installation work is expected to start tentatively by June’2023. The expected date of completion of the substation is June 2026.”