Government eyes 62,000 MW of power generation capacity by 2012

The government said on Thursday that it was expecting to put in place 62,000 MW of additional power generation capacity by March 2012. Power Secretary Harishankar Brahma said that the government was looking to streamline various issues hindering capacity generation projects and the latter will pick up pace going forward.

He also added that the future growth of power generation capacity in India would also depend on coal and natural gas supplies, adding that until the energy issues were streamlined, it would be difficult to achieve the required capacity addition target. The government‘s present target is to add total of 78,577 MW power generation capacity under the 11th Five-Year Plan period (2007-12).

India’s thermal power projects continue to face shortage of coal supplies despite the country having one of the largest coal reserves in the world. Similarly, gas-based plants, too, have been suffering from shortage of natural gas and the government is looking to address these issues through a unified sustainable energy policy, still under considerations of the Cabinet.

Despite ambitious plans, India’s power sector has been one of worst performing industries in the post-reform era. The country has chronically missed capacity addition targets and is likely to continue doing so in the near term. The power minister has recently said that fundamental changes in planning and execution of power related projects were needed if the ambitious targets were to be met. An idea of poor state of India’s power sector may be brought home from the fact that while China adds 2 GW of power capacity every week, India has failed to add 10GW in any single year.