DILIGENT PLANNING AND REGULAR MONITORING WILL
ENABLE ACHIEVEMENT OF 41,000 MW CAPACITY ADDITION TARGET IN 10TH
PLAN: POWER MINISTER
The Minister of Power Shri Suresh Prabhu has said that diligent
planning and regular monitoring, he is confident will enable the
achievement of capacity addition of 41,000 MW of power in the
10th Plan. Shri Prabhu was speaking while inaugurating
the two-day conference on capacity addition for the 10th
Plan and advanced action for the 11th Plan. This is
the first ever conference of its kind and has been called at the
initiative of the Minister. The Conference is the result of review
taken by Shri Prabhu of the state of preparedness of the projects
which have been identified for commissioning in the 10th
Plan. The estimated demand for power by the year 2012 is expected
to be an additional one lakh seven thousand MW of which 44,000
MW (41,000 MW conventional power and 3000 MW renewable) is targeted
for the 10th Plan. The remaining 63,000 MW is targeted
for the 11th Plan.
The Minister said that there has been a 270 percent increase
in plan outlay for the power sector as the Government realizes
that there is an urgent need to restructure this sector. Finance
being a major issue the Udhesh Kohli Committee will be looking
into macro level finance. Turning to the question of foreign investment
in the power sector Shri Prabhu said that a recent road show held
in the United Kingdom has proved that there is still interest.
This is due to the policy of the Government of embarking structural
changes. The Minister once again reiterated that CPSUs under his
Ministry have been asked to leverage their balance sheets to access
resources. The Minister said that a tariff policy will be out
soon which will help SEBs.
Flagging of many other issues Shri Prabhu said the CEA’s role
needs to undergo a sea change and it will have to play a more
pro-active role in the capacity addition programme in addition
to its usual statutory functions. Due to interaction between the
Ministry of Power and State Governments, many states who earlier
were not planning any capacity addition in the state sector during
the 10th Plan have now started thinking about setting
up projects over the next five years.
Shri Prabhu said that standardization of equipments would reduce
project cost and there is also need to drastically control cost
and time overruns. Concluding his inaugural address the Minister
said quarterly regional meetings would be held as a follow up
to this conference and this conference would be held once every
year hence forth.
During the meeting discussions will be held with the Chairpersons
of State Electricity Boards and Power Secretaries of the States
to discuss the status of projects that have been identified in
the 10th Plan period. Some of the leading Independent
Power Producers (IPPs) have also been invited to attend and give
a presentation.
Deliberations at the Conference are expected to resolve bottlenecks
that may exist during the execution of projects. Representatives
from various Central Ministries like Coal, Petroleum and Natural
Gas, Railways, Programme Implementation and also the Planning
Commission would be present at the Conference. Invitations have
also been extended to some of the leading financial institutions
who are one of the important stake holders for the future development
of the power sector.
The Minister of State for Power Smt. Jayawanti Mehta said achievement
of the target for the 10th Plan is necessary because
of the poor performance during the 8th and 9th
Plan. The Secretary, Power Shri R.V. Shahi in his remarks said
states would have to take up reforms earnestly and if they did
so the Centre was always willing to find ways to finance projects.
However, if the States were not able to turn around their power
sectors by the end of the 10th Plan funding to them
would become very difficult.
