'Two yrs before power situation improves'

Maharashtra Industries Minister Ashok Chavan promised industry in the state that the power situation will improve in the state within the next one and half years to two years with a lot of generation capacity being added both in the private and state sector.

He was responding to the concerns expressed by the Kirloskar Oil Engines Limited (KOEL) Chairman and Managing Director Atul Kirloskar on the inadequate infrastructure which included the worsening power situation in the state.

Kirloskar expressed his views at Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signing ceremony between KOEL and state government for KOEL's greenfield export oriented unit at Kagal.

Chavan accepted the their is huge gap (5500 Mw) between demand supply and said, measures undertaken to overcome situation will start showing results within next 18 months to two years.

He pointed out that industrial parks of MIDC have been exempted from load shedding and a new initiative for captive power plants for industrial park has been undertaken by the MIDC at its industrial parks at Thane-Belapur and Buttibori near Nagpur.

Though the state is set to have the highest number of Special Economic Zones (SEZ), i.e.72 SEZs, they will not be an additional burden as all the SEZs will have their own captive generation capacity, he claimed.