Govt plans bulk purchase of power equipment

The government is considering new norms for bulk purchase of supercritical thermal power technology to meet the requirement of major power producers in the country, Power Secretary Anil Razdan said today.

"The ministry is in the process of finalising some methodology for bulk purchase of supercritical power plants at least for the requirement of NTPC and Damodar Vally Corporation (DVC)," Razdan told reporters here.

He said: "We are trying to build an appropriate climate for investment in new technology in India. We want that supercritical technology should find a manufacturing base in India."

Power equipment majors BHEL-Siemens, Mitsubishi-L&T, Bharat Forge-Alstom and Toshiba-JSW have already tied-up for providing technology.

Razdan said: "At present, the ministry is looking forward to bring in ultra-supercritical technology to the country for achieving higher level of efficiency than supercritical thermal power plants."

He opined that apart from high capacity supercritical power plant ranging from 660 Mw to 1,000 Mw, the ministry would also work on lower modules such as 200 Mw or 300 Mw, which would enable entrepreneur to set up small but efficient captive power plants.

When asked about progress in capacity addition targets, he replied, "20,000 Mw capacity would be added by the end of the second financial year (by March 2009) of the 11th Five-Year Plan."