Govt sets up panel to look into sourcing of power equipment

The government today said it has set up a committee to examine the matter regarding the sourcing of supercritical equipment for the ultra mega power projects of 4,000 Mw capacity.

"A committee under the chairmanship of Member (Industry), Planning Commission, has been set up to look into the details and work out the modalities regarding securing supercritical equipment for the ultra mega power projects (UMPPs) with phased domestic manufacturing programme," an official statement said.

The developer for these projects are selected through international competitive bidding process conducted by the project-specific Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) formed as 100% subsidiaries of Power Finance Corporation (PFC), the nodal agency for UMPPs.

Moreover, the central transmission utility PowerGrid Corporation has envisaged investment of about Rs 55,000 crore during 11th Plan (2007-12) for implementation of various transmission projects, the statement said.

PowerGrid Corp has already inter-connected all the five Regional Grids of the country and established power transmission network National Grid with total inter-regional power transfer capacity of about 22,400 Mw, it added.

National Grid is enabling transfer of power from generating sources to various load centres and facilitating transfer of surplus power to deficit regions on real time basis.