Extra capacity: Jairam's opposition has no takers

Plan Panel to raise generation target to 130,000 Mw in 12th Plan.

The reservations of Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh on the projected additional electricity generation capacity of 100,000 Mw during the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17) period has failed to cut much ice with the Planning Commission.

The Commission is, in fact, all set to raise this target to 1,25,000 Mw–1,30,000 Mw in the approach paper, a senior Commission official told Business Standard.

“This is critical for achievement of the targeted growth rate of 9-9.5 per cent during the 12th Plan, which is also set to remain the same in the approach paper. Of course, the environmental concerns will be addressed while fixing the target,” he added.

In the full Planning Commission meeting on April 21, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Ramesh is believed to be critical of the 100,000 Mw additional generation capacity projection and raised environmental concerns on the 9-9.5 per cent growth target for the 12th Plan, based on this calculation.

The Commission, in its presentation made to the prime minister in the meeting, had cited a target of 100,000 Mw power generating capacity in the 12th Plan period as against likely achievement of 50,000 Mw in the 11th Plan as being critical for achieving the 9%-9.5% GDP growth.

In the 11th Plan, the government had initially set a target of 78,700 Mw capacity addition in the power sector, which was later scaled down to 62,374 Mw in the mid-term appraisal of the 11th Plan.

However, actual achievement during the Plan period is expected to be in the range of 50,000 Mw-53,000 Mw as per Planning Commission’s assessment.

“The number mentioned in the presentation made to the prime minister was based on crude calculations. However, the actual target is set to be much higher,” said the official.

He pointed out that of the 100,000 Mw target almost 26,000 Mw was from spillages — projects, which were part of the 11th Plan but was not completed.

The official added that another 67,000 Mw was already under construction, which should normally come into operation in the 12th Plan period.

“This effectively means that of 100,000 Mw target, almost 93,000 Mw is sure to come, hence the targeted power generation in the 12th Plan is sure to be higher,” he said.

“You can’t have faster growth unless you have adequate power supply. Moreover, our idea is to bring down the use of diesel-run DG sets to the minimum,” the official said.

He stressed the idea was to use DG sets only as a back-up facility, not the primary source of power as is the case in many parts of the country now.