The Hindu : Power: concern over slow progress in capacity addition

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 13, 2003

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Business

Power: concern over slow progress in capacity addition

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JUNE 12. Taking a serious note of the fact that just 7 per cent of the targeted addition to generating capacity in the Tenth Plan could be realised so far, the Centre is stepping up pressure on Central public sector enterprises and the States by making it clear to them that work must commence on all the projects if the target is to be achieved.

Addressing a conference of Power Ministers and Power Secretaries of the States called to take stock of power generation scenario in the country, the Union Power Minister, Anant Geete, made a fervent appeal to the State governments to try and do their utmost to help redeem the target of adding 41,000 MW by 2007. The Ministry which had taken initiative to convene the meeting is worried that progress made so far in realising the targeted capacity addition was not satisfactory and the second year of the five year plan was under way as also the fact that performance in the Ninth Plan too was dismal as the country failed to achieve less than 50 per cent of the target.

"I know the financial health of almost all State electricity boards and this is really a matter of concern. The Ministry of Power has taken various initiatives in the recent past to improve the SEBs' financial position. I hope all States make use of the schemes such as Accelerated Power Development and Reform Programme (APDRP) aimed at reducing transmission and distribution losses," the Minister said.

He said the new Electricity Act 2003 has also come into force, which has provision for handling distribution business by non-government organisations, cooperative societies and panchayats among others. This should help bring a positive change in the scenario.

So far as availability of funds is concerned, Mr. Geete said the Rural Electrification Corporation (REC), which till recently was providing funds only for the purpose of rural areas, would start providing funds for generation projects along with Power Finance Corporation (PFC).

Also, the Centre, he said, has set up a special monitoring system in association with Central Electricity Authority (CEA) to monitor each project and to identify and help clear hurdles if any. Referring to the unsatisfactory performance so far towards reaching the target of capacity addition, he said, "Of the target of 41,000 MW in the current Five Year Plan, so far 2958 MW of capacity has been installed. Work on 18842.44 MW is going on and work on the balance 19309.56 MW capacity needs to be commenced within this financial year if the Tenth plan capacity addition target is to be achieved".

He also said that the Centre had approved an outlay of Rs. 40,000 crores under APDRP corpus for the current plan.

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