Shinde to enquire into power target in President's speech

Baffled by the mention of the capacity target of 13,000 mw in President Pratibha Patil's speech in Parliament, Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has started enquiring as how these goals were lowered.     

The government had earlier fixed a target 90,000 mw capacity in the 11th plan (2007-2012), which translates into an annual addition of 18,000 mw.      "We have to see which department has failed — whether coal, fuel or BHEL or ourselves," Shinde told PTI.     

The minister has convened a meeting of senior officials tomorrow morning to look into it.     

Besides this, Shinde will also hold a meeting of all state power ministers on June 23 to ensure that the capacity addition target is achieved and to find out the reasons for shortfall in it.     

Shinde, who has been given charge of the power ministry for the second time, admitted that there was "lethargy" somewhere in the system and vowed to take all corrective measures to keep the momentum intact.     

In 2008-09, a capacity of about 16,000 MW was added but subsequently this has slowed down a bit, he said, adding "I want to take major decisions in this regard."

Asked about the measures, Shinde said he is planning to form a committee of some of the retired power secretaries to guide and monitor the progress.     

"I have been talking to Anil Razdan, R V Shahi and others and to see if we can utilise their expertise," the minister said.     

The President, in her address to joint sitting of Parliament last week, had said that coordinated action for energy would be guided by the integrated energy policy.     

The effort would be to see that at least 13,000 mw of generating capacity is added each year through a mix of sources — coal, hydel, nuclear and renewables, Patil said.     

Asked whether there will be a new monitoring committee, Shinde said there is already one but "we are reviewing that whether we need another."     

On what would be an achievable capacity addition target, he said the original target was 90,000 mw (78,000 MW from all sources and 12,000 mw from captive sources) but still "we will be able to reach between 80,000-90,000 mw".