targets during eighth, ninth and tenth plans and taken remedial steps to ensure that the target set for eleventh and twelfth plans were met, union power minister Sushilkumar Shinde said on Friday here.
Addressing the Energy Summit organised by The Economic Times and Vidarbha Industries Association (VIA), Shinde said that while there would be slippages in meeting the eleventh five year plan capacity addition target of 78,500 MW, it would be compensated by addition of 7,000 MW extra. He expressed hope that captive power producers would add another 10,000 MW while 14,000 MW would be available from renewable sources.
"After taking charge as energy minister in 2006 I realized that India has added only 56,000 MW in last 15 years because of three reasons - delay in placing orders for power generation equipments, limited capacity of BHEL to produce equipments and absence of a monitoring system in power sector," he said.
The government immediately took remedial steps by placing orders for projects planned in eleventh plan well in advance, asking BHEL to increase its capacity, buying equipments from other countries and inviting private players to set up power equipment manufacturing units and putting a monitoring system in place.
Elaborating on these steps, Shinde said that the tenth plan target was 42,000 MW but orders were placed for only 21,000 MW. On the other, orders for 30,000 MW out of twelfth plan target of 1,00,000 MW have already been placed.
BHEL has increased its production capacity from 5,000 MW to 7,000 MW and it would reach 10,000 MW by 2012.
However, this was not enough and hence government had asked private players to enter this sector. Four companies - Larsen & Toubro, Alstrom, Bharat Forge and JSW had evinced interest and two of them had already started work on the units. The power companies had also started importing equipment from other countries like Japan, China, South Korea, etc. to tide over the shortage, he added.
The minister said that he had formed a group of seven former principal secretaries of union ministry of power (UMoP) to monitor the projects and advise him on power sector.
Explaining the reforms in land acqusition process, the minister said, "NTPC officers were told to directly hold talks with farmers for acquiring land bypassing the state government machinery. It yielded very good results in Mouda (near Nagpur) and Solapur. The farmers received Rs 8 lakh per acre and Rs 5 lakh per acre respectively, which was far above the government price. Many private companies are now following NTPC's footsteps," he said.
"The UMoP had also decided to provide 100 units per month free of cost for ten years to families who had lost their land in hydel projects. They could sell the power not used by them to the distribution licensees," he added.
In order to encourage private players in power sector, UMoP has allowed hydel power plants to sell 40% of power generated on merchant basis. The corresponding figure for mega power projects is 15%.
Admitting that 34% transmission and distribution (T&D) losses were a major source of concern, the minister said that centre had launched the accelerated power development and reforms programme (APDRP) to reduce the losses. It was also taking novel initiatives like replacing old agricultural pumps free of cost with new ones, which consume less electricity but give same yield. This scheme had been launched in Maharashtra and Gujarat and was expected to save 10,000 MW.
Commenting on acute manpower shortage in power sector, Shinde said that NTPC had already adopted 27 industrial training institutes (ITIs) to train youngsters. UMoP had taken a policy decision that NTPC would set up training schools along with new units so that manpower was readily available to run them. The youth of families which had lost their land for the projects would be given first priority.
The transmission capacity is also being increased to improve grid connectivity. As on date 10,000 MW can be evacuated from North-East including Bhutan. This will increase to 27,000 MW by end of the year. Private players have been allowed in the sector and three transmission corridors have been awarded to them. Another three will be given soon.
Turning to pollution from coal-fired power plants, Shinde said that NTPC had decided to set up a cement plant near its coal-fired power stations in case there was none in the vicinity. These cement plants would utilize the flyash generated from the power station.
The minister said that liquified natural gas (LNG) shortage had reduced to some extent since Reliance' Krishna Godavari gas field had started production. However, as a large quantum of the gas was being supplied to power plants in Andhra Pradesh, the central sector plants were still facing shortage.
He expressed confidence that the beleaguered 2100 MW Dabhol power plant which is generating around 900 MW presently would start generating at full capacity by March this year. UMoP had asked NTPC to submit a detailed project report (DPR) for increasing Dabhol's capacity by another 2,000 MW, he added.
Commenting on the coal linkage problem of 1980 MW Adani power plant (150 km from Nagpur), the minister said that the matter would be taken up with union ministry of environment and forests.
Shinde praised VIA for realizing the enormous opportunities for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in power sector. "In the coming days power equipments will be manufactured in the country on a large scale and they will need ancillary industries. Those who identify the opportunities now will greatly benefit in the future."
Union minister of state for coal Sriprakash Jaiswal, national president of BJP Nitin Gadkari, CERC chairman Pramod Deo, Pravin Tapadia and Suresh Agrawal of VIA, Manoj Jayaswal of Abhijit Group, Padmesh Gupta of Gupta Group of Companies, D C Garg of Western Coalfields Limited, Rajeev Batra of KPMG and others were present on the dais.
0 comments:
Post a Comment