1. Introduction: Intensification of Rural Electrification jobs is under implementation in the district of Cooch Behar under the flagship programme of Rajeev Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY) of Govt. of India. After placement of the Letter of Awards (LOA) with two turn-key Contractors for three separate packages covering 12 Blocks of the District, field survey could start in the month of June, 2009 only when the General Elections to the Lok Sabha was over. During survey it was noticed that the village / Location wise allocation of HT/LT infra-structures in the LOAs for the 1112 Nos. Of villages covering 3305 hamlets is not at all sufficient to cover the specified BPL House-holds situated in the earmarked locations. In many cases, the actual requirements were found to be almost 3 times the sanctioned quantity. Moreover, there are so many hamlets / locations in the mentioned villages, which are not covered under the scope of the RGGVY.

Obviously this created lot of resentment among the villagers (mostly under BPL Category) who failed to come under the purview of the long-awaited RGGVY schemes. In many areas people started obstructing in conducting the field survey partially. Rather, they demanded for inclusion of their areas very much within the RGGVY itself irrespective of sanctioned LOA quantity.

The matter was immediately brought to the notice of the higher authority. Conducting survey for the entire location would invite the problems during execution in fields, as the total financial involvement of RGGVY Packages should be restricted within extra 10% of the sanctioned amount of LOA. Considering the gravity of the situation it was decided by the appropriate authority that the left-out areas would be surveyed separately and those areas would be electrified through a separate package to be financed through the financial assistance by the Govt. of West Bengal.

2. Background: Accordingly, detailed field survey had been conducted all over the district in those areas which could not be covered under the RGGVY-II scheme for intensification of rural electrification infra-structure for giving access to electricity to the rural households.

3. On-Going Initiatives: At present work of intensification of Rural Electrical networks is going on under RGGVY-II in 1112 nos. of villages covering 3305 hamlets /locations. The project is mainly supplementary to the on-going RGGVY schemes and covers 713 villages having 4332 hamlets. About 2.05 lacs of BPL households were targeted to be electrified under present RGGVY-II. But, due to the constraints of limited sanctioned infra-structure in RGGVY, only about 1.1 lacs of BPL house-holds are expected to be

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covered through RGGVY-II. The proposed project has an estimated additional 86320 Nos. of BPL house-holds to be connected through the extra networks.

4. Project Objectives: The proposed scheme includes complete electrification of habitations in the areas not covered under RGGVY-II. The scheme shall be for extension of power supply to domestic consumers, public institutions etc. in the area with particular emphasis on BPL Households. The general description of the project objectives is given below:

To electrify all the un-electrified hamlets having minimum 15-20 households in clusters in the left-out areas of the district.

To give service connections to all the BPL households within the proposed networks under this scheme as per standard norms.

To electrify minimum 10% of the households of the villages and other public places in these villages like schools, libraries, panchayet offices, health centres, post offices, dispensaries, community centres etc.

To create infrastructures for providing electricity to all consumers in the project area on demand.

To keep necessary provisions for further up-gradation / augmentation of the created infra-structures.

5. Deliverables: The scheme for electrification / extension of electrical supply to the un-electrified villages / hamlets includes the following:

11 kV HT Lines. 11/0.415 kV, 16kVA distribution Transformers. 3-phase LT Lines. 1-phase LT Lines. Service Connections to different households under BPL category. Adoption of latest technology.

6. Assessment of Involvement: To assess the detailed requirement of proposed infrastructure, extensive field survey had been conducted by using GPS (Global Positioning System) machines.

Local contractors, enlisted with WBSEDCL for carrying out RE works, were engaged for the purpose. Obtained field data has been plotted through GIS (Geographical Information System) software “Mapinfo” and the detailed networks of proposed infrastructure were then super-imposed over the digitized Mouza maps in separate Development Blocks of the district.

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7. Optimization of the Requirements: To avoid duplication of the networks to be created under RGGVY as well as through this separate scheme, the GIS Layer of the proposed networks under RGGVY, as prepared by the Turn-key contractors, has been super-imposed over the aforesaid drawing of this proposed scheme and thorough checking done to eliminate the networks which were found over-lapping with the networks of RGGVY. Further optimization was done under following procedure:

Installations of HT Lines with DTRs have been avoided as far as practicable by inter-connecting adjacent LT networks through LT Lines.

Networks surveyed for providing electricity to the scattered BPL households have been deleted from the proposed scheme.

Keeping in view the requirement of mainly domestic load of the BPL households, majority of the LT networks are proposed as single phase LT Lines with provisions for conversion to three phase lines as per requirement in future.

Size of the surveyed LT networks was also optimized by limiting the networks to cover the BPL Households at terminal points.

However for some areas the survey drawings could not be checked by superimposing with RGGVY-II drawings as all the superimposed drawings of Vijai Electricals Ltd. (for Package-2 & 3) have not been submitted till date. Networks have been optimized by physical verification of the field as far as practicable.

After the above extensive exercise the final involvement of the scheme has been worked out as follows:

Sl. Items Unit Quantity1. 11 kV HT Lines km 847.5082. 16 kVA DTRs No. 16573. Tee-Offs (Solid) No. 12434. Tee-Offs with GO Isolator No. 4145. 3-phase LT Lines km 933.496. Single phase LT Lines km 1668.65

Village and location-wise detailed requirement of the infrastructure has been shown in Annexure-A.

8. Coverage Area: The coverage area of the project is spread over the entire district of Cooch Behar, details of which are available in Annexure-D. As the nature of habitation is mainly scattered in the district, hamlets in a particular mouza or village are generally situated at distances of hundreds of meters apart, having the same village/mouza name for the different hamlets. To identify these scattered hamlets having substantive nos. of households, names of house-owners have been indicated to

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mark a stretch of road / line. But, these do not necessarily mean that the network shall be constructed from the house of ‘X’ to the house of ‘Y’. These are just indicators to mention the hamlets / locations.

As stated earlier, many of the villages or locations could not be totally covered under RGGVY-II leaving a substantial portion of area for the proposed project. As a result, repeating of same name of villages / locations in both the RGGVY-II and proposed schemes cannot be avoided due to obvious reasons. But, these incidents shall definitely indicate that only a part of the village / location could be electrified under RGGVY-II and the balance part is being considered in the proposed project.

9. Cost Estimates: Cost estimation of the total requirements has been done on the basis of RE Cost Data for the year 2010-11, as prepared by the RE Head-quarters of WBSEDCL. While estimating following considerations were made:

Sundries @ 5% over the Materials cost and Supervision Charges @ 15% over the Total Material and Erection Costs were considered as per norms.

Cost of effecting BPL Service Connections with supply of all materials including single phase static energy meters has been taken as ` 1900/- per connection.

Cost of DTR Metering has been taken from the latest issued LOA for the RHhE (Suppl.) package-15, as the item is not available in the RE Schedule.

The Summary of Cost Estimates is tabulated in the following table:

SL. ITEM QUANTITY COST ( ` )

1 11KV H.T. O.H. LINE WITH 30SQ. MM. ACSR 3-PH ON 8M PCC POLE 847.508 km 152406193.00

2 L.T. OH. LINE WITH 25 SQ. MM. AAC 3-PH 4-WIRE ON 8M PCC POLE 933.487 km 227628148.00

3 L.T. OH. LINE WITH 25 SQ. MM. AAC 1-PH 2-WIRE ON 8M PCC POLE

1,668.646 km 340266723.00

4 DISTRIBUTION SUB-STATION 11/.4KV, 16KVA ON 8M PCC POLE DP 1,657 no 193601309.00

5 SOLID T-OFF ON 8M PCC POLE 1,207 no 17659464.00

6 T-OFF WITH G.O. ISOLATOR ON 8M PCC POLE 406 no 18085184.00

7 DTR METERING FOR 11/.4KV, 16KVA DTR 1,657 no 12922595.00

8 BPL SERVICE CONNECTION 86,320 no 164008000.00

Total: ` 1126577616.00

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10. Technical Considerations: The scheme is proposed to be implemented following the same technical aspects as in RGGVY packages. However, the following points are also considered while preparing the estimates on the basis of standard RE Schedules:

Only 16 kVA Distribution Transformers have been considered for installation in the proposed networks wherever necessary.

All steel sections and structural materials are proposed to be Galvanized Iron (GI) only.

11 kV XLPE cables are considered for using in Distribution Sub-Stations, as provided in the RE Construction Standards.

ACSR 30 sq mm Conductors are proposed for 11 kV HT Lines, whereas AAC 25 sq mm conductors are to be used in LT Lines.

3-phase Static Energy Meters with PP Box are considered for 16 kVA DTR Metering to facilitate Energy Auditing.

Supply of single phase Static Energy Meters for BPL House-holds may be made by WBSEDCL, if decided by the appropriate authority.

LT Spacers are proposed to be used in LT Lines, though cost of its Supply and Erection is not considered to match with RE Schedules.

11. Existing Electrical System: The entire district is fed by 10 Nos. 33/11 kV Sub-stations at present with another 2 Nos. proposed for construction under RGGVY-II and REDB-I schemes. These sub-stations are drawing power from the 132/33 grid sub-station at Cooch Behar having adequate capacity. The proposed increased load under this project shall well be catered by these sub-stations and necessity of any new sub-station is not envisaged in near future.

12. Cost-Benefit Analysis: Cost –Benefit Analysis of the proposed project has been done by calculating IRR (Internal Rate of Return) with the help of MS-Excel Software. For the purpose of aforesaid calculation, the following parameters have been selected:

The Project cost has been taken as Rs. 112, 65, 77, 616/- as given in the Cost Summary.

The initial investments have been allocated to three financial years for the stipulated completion period of 24 months plus probable extension periods.

The allocation of investment is assumed as 10% for the first year, 40% for the second year and remaining 50% for the third year.

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The total life of the project has been assumed as 35 years. The prospective consumers have been taken as per the estimated numbers of

households as follows: 86,320 Nos. BPL and 1,28,509 Nos. of APL Consumers. The connected load for BPL consumers is taken as 40 watts and that for APL

consumers is 300 watts. Based on an average use for six hours daily, the annual consumption of

electricity by these two categories of consumers comes as BPL: 87.6 kWh and APL: 657 kWh (Units).

For the purpose of assessment of projected revenue earnings, the average sale price is taken as Rs. 4.72 per kWh, being the average unit cost sanctioned by the State Electricity Regulatory Commission.

The average cost of purchase of electrical energy from the generating companies for supplying to the village population is taken as Rs. 2.50 per kWh.

The operation & maintenance expenses and the administrative costs are taken as 4% and 8% of the capital cost respectively.

For the projected cash inflows and outflows constant annual sums or annuities are considered.

Net Present Value (NPV) at a discount factor of 14% and IRR have been computed with the help of MS Excel Spreadsheet, which comes as 0.01.

As such, the project may be considered as financially viable in the long run.

Details of C-B Analysis are given in Annexure-E.

13. Project Financing & Disbursement of Funds: Financing for the project is expected to be made available by the Govt. of West Bengal from the fund allocated for the purpose of balance work of Rural House-hold Electrification (RHhE) under WBREP scheme.

The necessary fund for execution of the project may be released by WBSEDCL in phases.

14. Modalities for Implementation: Latest practices shall be adopted for design, procurement, erection and commissioning of HT and LT overhead lines, distribution sub-stations, service connection to BPL house-holds including house-hold internal wiring for single point connection. For procurement of goods and services, the standard guidelines as being followed in RGGVY Schemes shall generally be adopted, including the standard bidding procedure.

The whole project is proposed to be executed on total Turn-key Contract basis as per guideline. The main responsibility of Controlling and implementation of the project shall be with Cooch Behar RE Project of WBSEDCL. The sanctioned man-power set-up including those of WBREDCL is considered sufficient for supervising and monitoring of the project.

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15. Quality Standards: Checking of quality standards of materials and works are proposed to be monitored as per similar procedure maintained in RGGVY schemes following standard Manufacturing Quality Plans (MQP) and Field Quality Plans (FQP). The agencies, like WBREDCL, may be utilized for checking and maintaining proper quality standards.

16. Completion Period: It is proposed to implement the total Project over a period of about two years in a sequential basis. The proposed ‘Zero Date’ will be counted from the date of placement of the Letter of Award to the Turn-key Contractor.

17. Beneficiaries: The total No. of villages covered under the Project is 214829 having 4332 Nos. of hamlets. The entire project is for intensification of networks for electrification of the habitations in these villages.

The project shall meet the universal obligation to provide electricity all intending consumers on demand. The present scheme covers electrification of un-electrified hamlets in these areas only.

In the un-electrified villages, 100% grant is being provided for service connection to BPL households as per existing guidelines being followed in RGGVY schemes. Accordingly, BPL households shall be fully benefited by the work under execution in this project.

The total No. of estimated BPL households to be covered under the project is 86320.

While estimating the number and capacity of distribution transformers for rural households, load of 300 Watts (with a diversity factor of 1.5 and utilization Factor of 0.75) per consumer has been considered for general category of public and 40 Watts for BPL Category of consumers.

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