UP may establish 9,750 MW power capacity by 2017

The Uttar Pradesh government has taken massive strides towards fulfilling its promise of becoming a power surplus state by 2017, signing MOUs with several major companies this year for establishing new plants with a cumulative generation capacity of 9,750 megawatts.

Faced with a power crisis year-after-year in the peak summer season, the state government this year secured promises from companies like Reliance Power, JP Power, Bajaj Hindustan, Lanco, Creative Thermolite, Unitech Machines, Parekh Aluminics, Torrent Power, Dalmia Group, Ashok Leyland, GVK, GMR Wellspun and the Aditya Birla Group to set up new projects in the state.

"A plan has been worked out by the state to enhance power generation capacity by ensuring rigorous implementation of power sector reforms and bringing in efficiencies of the private sector to meet full demand by 2014," State Power Secretary Navneet Sehgal said.

"MoUs have been signed this year with Bajaj Hindustan for setting up power plants in Lalitpur and Chitrakoot for projects generating 1,980 MW of power each," he said, adding that another MOU for a 450-MW power plant was signed with sugar mills owned by the group.

The government has also signed a MoU with Lanco-Infotech for two 1320-MW plants at Bhognipur, in Kanpur Dehat district, and with Parekh Aluminics for a project in Fatehgarh with a capacity of 250 MW, he said.

Sehgal further said that Unitech Machines will set up a plant with a capacity of 250 MW in Auraiya, while Neyveli Lignite will establish a 2,000-MW power plant in Ghatampur.

The power scenario has already started looking up, with two plants of 600-MW capacity each commencing operations at Roza and Shahjahanpur, official sources said.

However, the collapse of a 115-metre high chimney at the Parichcha power plant on May 20 has delayed 500 MW of power capacity coming onstream, sources said.

According to sources, the installed generation capacity of the state as of today is 4,082 MW, excluding around 526 MW of hydel power.

However, the state is only able to produce 3,000 MW of power on a daily basis. It also gets around 4,000 MW from the central pool, sources said. However, given that daily demand in the state amounts to 10,000 MW, this translates into an average daily shortfall of 3000 MW.

The scarcity of power is a a major political and election issue in Uttar Pradesh, as no new power plant has been set up in the past 20 years, even though demand has increased manifold during the period.