Land acquisition problems may deter the government from continuing with the 4,000 MW-capacity ultra mega power plants in the country after it is through with the initial nine projects.
It has so far allotted four of the nine projects conceived originally, and along the course in 2008, Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde had announced scaling up the total number of UMPPs to 13.
"Four more UMPPs over and above the earlier nine seem difficult," a power ministry source said, adding that the government may have a rethink about them.
Power Ministry announced setting up of these high capacity projects to mitigate the electricity deficit in the country. India's total electricity generation is at over 1,50,000 MW, 14 per cent short of demand.
PFC has so far awarded four such projects at Sasan (MP), Krishnapatnam (AP), Mundra (Gujarat) and Tilaiya (Jharkhand).
Reliance Power has bagged three of the four allotted UMPPs at Sasan, Krishnapatnam and Tilaiya and Tata Power is currently developing Mundra UMPP in Gujarat.
The sites for five other UMPPs are yet to be decided. The government had appointed Power Finance Corporation as the nodal agency for these projects.
The four additional UMPPs mentioned by Shinde were to have come up in the states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat.