Power generation in the country went up by 10 per cent in the April 2014-February 2015 period, with the country gearing up to meet greater electricity demand.

Thermal power generation in particular went up nearly 12 per cent during the period to 803,875.07 million units, according to the Central Electricity Authority (CEA). The higher generation helped reduce the power supply deficit to 3.1 per cent in January 2015 as against 3.3 per cent in the same month last year.

The drop in power supply deficit is even greater for the April – January 2015 period compared to the same period last year. The power supply deficit in the current fiscal till January was 3.8 per cent as against 4.3 per cent in the corresponding period last year.

“Nothing new has happened apart from the new Government coming to power. Such a growth in power generation hasn’t happened in the last many years. We are certainly not happy about all of this. I have much more ambitious targets,” Power, Coal and New and Renewable Energy Minister Piyush Goyal recently told BusinessLine .

CEA data shows coal supply has also improved. On March 15, 18 out of 100 thermal power plants had less than seven days or critical levels of coal stocks – compared to a figure of above 50 between August-September 2014.

Goyal had said that the shortage was due to stepping up of thermal power generation because of the fall in hydro power due to rainfall shortage.

Coal India has also ramped up production. In February 2015, the output increased nearly 13 per cent to 47.98 million tonnes. In the April-February 2015 period the company’s production grew 6.8 per cent to 436.96 million tonnes.

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