'11th Plan target for new power capacity unreachable'

India may yet again miss power capacity addition target for a Plan period as the country is likely to add only around 50,000 MW of generation capacity against the targeted 72,000 MW in the 11th Five-Year Plan (2007-12).

C Rangarajan, chairman, Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, said, “We have initially planned to add 72,000 MW during the five year, then it was revised to 62,000 and now we are told that only 50,000 MW likely to be added. This is not good for the country. What we add here in five, China adds in one year”.

He was speaking at the India Finance Forum, a two-day event organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.

The sector needs to focus on environment, land acquisition and governance. The other challenges, which according to industry sources, are not in the main plant equipment (boilers, turbines and generators), but in the balance of plant equipment, ie, coal-handling, ash-handling plants. Supply of equipment for this section takes time.

At the beginning of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period (2007-12), the government had set a target for adding 78,577 MW of power. During the Plan period, the government has been able to add around 23,000 MW of electricity generation capacity.

This makes it an uphill task to attain an addition target of 78,577 MW, or even 62,000 MW capacity in the terminal year of the current plan period. Meanwhile, the Power Ministry has set a target of 100,000 MW of power capacity addition in the upcoming Twelfth Plan (2012-17).