The Hindu Business Line : Power capacity addition target looks distant

With less than 50 per cent achievement during the first nine months of 2007-08, and going by the Government’s dismal track record in sticking to its capacity addition during the previous three Plan periods, the target of adding a massive 78,577 MW during the five-year period appears elusive.

Any shortfall in the target for the current Plan would also drive a spoke in the Centre’s ambitious ‘Power for All by 2012’ agenda.

Against a target of adding 13,152 MW during the first nine months of the current fiscal (2007-08 being the first year of the Eleventh Plan period), projects totalling 6,485 MW had been commissioned till end-December 2007, a shortfall of 6,667 MW, or over 50 per cent of the target, according to the Government’s latest estimates.

May be scaled down

The shortfall is despite the fact that several power projects scheduled to be completed within the Tenth Plan period were to have spilled over from the terminal year of that period (2006-07) into the current fiscal — 2007-08.

Power Ministry officials said that even though project execution and commissioning picked up pace during the October-December quarter of the current fiscal, there were indications of the possibility of a downward revision in the capacity addition targets for the Eleventh Plan period.

The Government has been faltering on capacity addition targets over the last three Plan periods, with achievement hovering around just 50 per cent of the targets set during each of these five-year periods.

The main reasons for slippages of projects during the last Plan period, as cited by the Power Ministry, include manufacturing constraints faced by equipment suppliers, delays in placement of orders for main plants, tardy awarding of work and hold-ups in investment decisions, environment and forest clearances, lack of preparedness of projects and techno-economic clearance of hydro-projects.

Govt claims

Despite the obvious slow progress on the ground, the Government says it has fixed stringent time-lines for placement of orders and project execution. While projects totalling a capacity of around 52,365 MW are currently under execution, the newly formed National Power Project Management Board has been asked to ensure that placement of orders for the balance capacity of 23,632 MW by Central and State power utilities is done by March,” a Power Ministry official said.