Bangalore: Karnataka government will consider ordering an enquiry by an independent agency into the frequent tripping of the various units of Raichur Thermal Power Station (RTPS), Energy Minister, Basavaraj Patil Humnabad informed the Legislative Council on July 24.

The government will convene a meeting of the legislators and also the officials of the Karnataka Power Corporation (KPC) to discuss in detail the reasons for tripping of the first five units of RTPS, he said.

The government will also consider the opinion of the Opposition as well as experts before commissioning the eighth unit of RTPS in December, the Minister said responding to the issue jointly raised by Basavaraj Bommai (Janata Dal-Secular), M R Tanga (Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP), and M P Prakash (JD-United) and K C Kondaiah (Congress).

However, while the overhauling of the other units has been completed, that of the fourth unit will be completed in 50 days, the Minister said.

Earlier, the Opposition members including Bommai and Tanga pointed out that since from its very inception, RTPS had been facing problems.

Pointing to the "inability of the government to manage RTPS", Tanga said that it should be privatised. Besides, a person with proven experience in the field should be appointed as chairman of KPC as he would understand the technical hitches much better, he said.

The BJP leader also demanded an independent enquiry into the frequent tripping of the units of RTPS.

"While 98 production engineers are there at the site, all technical executives of RTPS are in Bangalore," Tanga pointed out and underlined the necessity of having the technical staff at the site to handle major problems.

In 2000-2001 the various units of RTPS tripped 104 times and the production came to grinding halt for many hours, Bommai pointed out.

PTI