Another Plan gone wrong

In terms of capacity addition over a Plan period, the country is set to miss its target again.

After missing the target with huge shortfalls in the last three Plan periods, India looks set to miss the revised target of 62,000 Mw in the current Plan too. With only one year of the 11th Plan period remaining, the addition deficit could be at least 10,000 Mw, if not more.

“Overall, we will be able to add only between 48,000 Mw and 52,000 Mw during this Plan period. While around 6,000 Mw of capacity will be missed in the current financial year, projects of around 5,000 Mw capacity will not materialise next financial year,” said a senior official in the Planning Commission.

Experts believe, to sustain economic growth, the power sector should grow by at least 1.2 per cent for every one per cent rise in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The country’s GDP growth has been pegged at over 8.5 per cent in the current financial year and 9 per cent in the 2011-12. The country’s power capacity addition grew less than 5 per cent from 9,263 Mw in 2007-08 to 9,585 Mw in 2009-10, even as India’s GDP grew more than 14 per cent at factor cost over the same period.

India had fallen short of the eighth Plan capacity addition target of 31,000 Mw by 15,000 Mw. The targets for ninth and 10th Plan, too, were missed by at least 20,000 Mw each (see table).