Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power on Wednesday asked power sector players to find solutions to the key issues and revert to his Ministry for facilitating them.
For second time in less than a month, the Minister met the Advisory Committee on power headed by him. The panel includes industry bigwigs such as Cyrus Mistry (Tata Power), Anil Ambani (Reliance Power), G M Rao (GMR Group) and Chanda Kochar (ICICI Bank), among others.
“We have outlined four areas where I would like the Advisory Group to form sub-groups and come up with solutions. The four topics have been outlined today....The Advisory Group will now revert to me when they are ready with solutions on those topics,” Scindia said after more than two-hours meeting.
The key areas include National Tariff Policy, issue of hydro electric power, ensuring capacity addition, issue of coal and gas shortages and transmission.
The Advisory Panel has been asked to meet again on March 13 and reveal the timelines they want to come out with solutions that would make the way forward in the respective areas.
“Its going to be piloted by them not us,” Scindia said.
Taking on the standard bidding documents for ultra mega power projects (UMPPs), Scindia said, “We are discussing it and will come to you when I have something....Today we were focussed on the standard bidding documents.”
The Power Ministry decided to discuss the standard bidding documents for case-II Ultra Mega Power Projects with industry players before taking the approval from the Empowered Group of Ministers.
The non-finalisation of bidding documents are delaying award of 4,000 MW each ultra mega power projects (UMPP) in Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh.