Govt confident on power target

Thu, Nov 5 01:15 PM

New Delhi, Nov. 4 -- Union power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said his ministry was confident of the 78,000 mega watt capacity addition target set for the power sector by 2012. "We have learnt from mistakes and failures on adding timely power capacity in the last three plan periods and what we could not achieve in the last 15 years put together, I am confident of doing it in this plan period,"said Shinde at the Economic Editors Conference on Wednesday. Shinde was referring to the 78,800 mw capacity addition targets set by the Planning Commission for the 11th plan period i.e 2007-2012. "In the last three plans put together, we added only around 56,000 mw but in the first two years of the current plan

period, we have already done 18,000 mw and I am confident that we can deliver 78,000 mw by 2012," the minister said. Shinde also said that BHEL, which was the sole equipment supplier for the power sector, has already put in place plans to increase its equipment manufacturing capacity to 10,000 mw. "Soon we will have may other equipment suppliers in the market," Shinde said. Five joint ventures including that of L&T and Mitsubishi, Bharat Forge and Alstom, JSW and Toshiba, Ansaldo and GB Engineering besides the BHEL-NTPC combine will be the new entrants in manufacturing equipments for the power capacity. "From 5000-6000 mw a year, India will then have an annual capacity to manufacture 30,000 mw of power sets annually."

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