New Delhi: In the wake of recent power outages in the city, Delhi government on Wednesday asked the petroleum ministry to divert gas supply meant for Pragati power plant to the newly-constructed Bawana power plant as it has more efficient machinery. The proposal, which has been approved “in principal” by the petroleum ministry, will increase power supply in Delhi by upto 60 MW. Sources said the efficiency of Bawana plant is upto 25 per cent more than the Pragati plant. “Since we do not know by when other power plants like Dadri will start functioning back to capacity, we decided to use all our resources and have a makeshift arrangement to solve the ongoing power problem,” Delhi Power Minister Haroon Yusuf said. The first module of the Bawana plant, which has a capacity to generate at least 750 MW, was made ready in April 2011 but it could start producing only 200 to 250 MW from November 2011 after the oil ministry allocated 1.564 million metric standard cubic metres per day gas to the plant from ONGC. However, irregular supply of gas has been forcing periodic shutdowns of the much-hyped plant that was constructed at a cost of Rs 4,500 crore. The proposal to divert the gas was moved before union minister M Veerappa Moily on Wednesday morning by chief minister Sheila Dikshit, along with power minister Yusuf, chief secretary D M Spolia and power secretary Shakti Sinha. “We are hoping that the ministry will implement it at the earliest to help us see improvement by the end of this week,” Yusuf added.