Half of india's power to come from private sector by 12th five year plan: Power Minister

25 Jul 2011 Evaluate

The participation of privet sector in power generation in coming years is expected to be around 50% of country’s total power generation capacity. The power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has assured that the reforms and an enabling policy environment will make sure that the half of country’s electricity generation and distribution is done by the private players, complementing public sector units (PSUs).

The Power Minister said that the participation of private sector has increased by 6% in 2006 to 29% 2011, and private sector share in generating and distributing will increase more than 50 % by the end of the next five year plan. And power ministry is targeting to add 100,000 megawatt of additional electricity capacity for next five years. Out of projects worth 80,000 MW capacity under construction, some 50,000 MW was being implemented by private developers such as Reliance Power, Adani Group and Tata Power.

The government has also awarded four ultra mega power projects to private players with an aggregate capacity of 16,000 megawatt worth some Rs.64,000 crore ($14.2 billion). Twelve more were to be awarded soon.

By accepting the shortage of coal as a major problem, Power Minister said he has already written to Prime Minister. Power Minister said other policy initiatives and reforms are also being undertaken to make this sector attractive.  

The coal remained an important source of feedstock for electricity generating companies and that 65 % of such energy as being produced by thermal power plants despite some new gas finds, power minister said. However, government is also pushing for increasing share of clean energy as the hydropower segment was now accounting for nearly 22 % of India’s supply and other forms of renewable energy sources some 11 % and nuclear plants 2%.

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