Govt Counter Guarantee For Four Power Projects Soon

The Union government will soon give counter guarantee for four fast track power projects _ Hinduja-promoted Vizag power project, Cogentrix, STCMS in Tamil Nadu and Ispat-promoted Bhadravati project in Maharashtra ,_ said Union power secretary E A S Sarma.

He was speaking at Power Tech97, a three-day international exhibition and conference organised by Chemtech Foundation. Sarma, however, did not give further details.

The bills for throwing open transmission to the private sector and setting up a central regulatory authority will have to be reintroduced in the new Parliament, he added. An energy conservation bill too will be introduced in the next Parliament, he informed.The government had set a capacity addition target of 40,000 MW in the Ninth Five Year Plan. The central and state government were proposing to add 11,000 MW each with the balance 18,000 MW being contributed by the private sector.

Sarma pointed out that the government was able to meet only about half the Eighth Plan target of adding 30,500 MW. However, the situation had been managed by increasing the Plant Load Factor from an average of 55 per cent to 64 per cent. He conceded that the government had erred in opening up generation sector to the private sector without privatising distribution first.

The Ninth Plan too would witness power shortages as 80 per cent of the addition would come up in the last two years.

In his inaugural address, state deputy chief minister, Gopinath Munde said that more powers needs to be delegated to the states. States, in turn, should delegate more powers to the state electricity boards. Otherwise investments cannot come in and projects cannot start, he said. The formation of committees only delays projects. In the current climate bureaucrats lack confidence to take decisions, he opined.

The chairman of the Maharashtra State Electricity Board P L Gajaralwar said that the state was facing problems in the implementation of the seven medium-sized power projects for which tenders were floated by the board. This was on account of shortage of naphtha.