Panipat: Haryana Power Generation Company Limited (HPGCL) has decided to lease four units of the Panipat Thermal Power Station (PTPS) on long-term basis. The HPGCL’s board in its 86th meeting held on March 15 decided to engage an agency, which would take over the PTPC on long-term basis on lease, rehabilitate units 3 and 4 while operate unit 1 to 4 for 10 years on the basis of competitive bidding. The board while discussing the proposal for renovation and modernisation of the four units concluded that spending a huge amount of money on the project was financially unviable and decided to lease the four units, which had been adding to the losses of the power utilities due to the high cost of generation due to decreased efficiency. The sources said the board in its early meeting held on January 4 had accepted the proposal to renovate and modernise the units 3 and 4, which included increasing the capacities of the units to 120 MW from the present 110 MW. The sources said the power utility had also got a report prepared in which renovation of modernisation projects executed at Bhatinda, Tanda and Kothaguedum thermal stations were studied. On the basis of this report, the board of directors decided that the renovation and modernisation of the four units was financially not viable and thus decided to lease the units to a private player. As per a report, the performance of two units at Bhatinda was not in consistent after renovation. At the Tanda thermal, the NTPC did not go for comprehensive renovation and modernisation but adopted short-term, medium-term and long-term need-based replacements and at Kothaguedum units were running at full load but the poor coal quality was effecting generation. The sources said the renovation experience of first two units of the Panipat thermal was not found satisfactory and thus the proposal was rejected altogether. The sources said by leasing the four units, the power utility intended to bring down the continuing losses of the Panipat thermal power station as generation cost at units 1 to 4 is Rs.3.77 per unit, while, the other units generate electricity at a cost of Rs 2.75 per unit. The units 1 and 2 (110 MW) of the PTPS were commissioned in stage one of the power plant. While, the 117.8 MW unit no. 1 became operational on November 1, 1979, the 110 MW unit two started generating power on March 27, 1980. The 110 MW units 3 and 4 were commissioned in stage two of the plant and became operational on November 1, 1985 and January 11, 1987, respectively. However, with the time, the efficiency of these units came down which made the authorities contemplate their renovation and modernisation, which according to the sources would have cost the power utility anywhere between Rs 526-554. According to the official documents, a copy of which is available with The Tribune, the board of directors also discussed the phasing out of unit 3 and 4 to save losses to the HPGCL along with other options, including that of renovation and modernisation of the two units or continuing generation after carrying out need-based renewal and replacement on which a cost of around Rs 150 crore was to be incurred.