No plans for buyback of shares right now: NTPC

State-owned NTPC today said that right now it has no plans to buy back shares.
"As of now we don't have any formal communication nor there is any further buyback from our side," company's Chairman and Managing Director Gurdeep Singh told reporters here.
He was addressing an annual press conference here.
Elaborating on the same, company's Director Finance Kulamani Biswal said :"You see buyback position comes only when you have sufficient cash reserves (idle) or you do not have capex plan.
"We have about 24,000 MW of projects under construction which require Rs 1,00,000 crore of capital expenditure. Therefore, our capital expenditure plans are also quite high."

The CMD further said as on March 31, 2016 there has been 100 per cent realisation. At the same time, the company is going ahead with expansion plans because under-construction projects are worth 24,000 MW.

"There is a huge capex....We have been able to realise 100 per cent. There are no problems as far as operations are concerned. But for our expansion programme we will have to go on borrowing," Singh said.
The company further said it does not have enough cash reserves to go in for buyback of shares.
As of March 31, 2016, the company's cash reserves is approximately Rs 4,000 crore.

The company incurred capex of Rs 25,737.59 crore during last fiscal against the MoU target of Rs 23,000 crore, achieving 112 per cent of the target utilisation.
The current year capex target of NTPC is Rs 30,000 crore. In addition, the group companies are likely to incur capex of Rs 8,965 crore.
The company further said it will add 4,500 MW of capacity in current fiscal, more than double of 2,200 MW it added in the last financial year.
As many as eight private sector companies, including Bharti Infratel, Bharti Airtel, Wipro, Dr Reddy's and OnMobile Global, in 2016 have announced buyback plans totalling about Rs 7,700 crore.

While renaming the Department of Disinvestment as Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) in Budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said it "will adopt a comprehensive approach for efficient management of the government investment in CPSEs by addressing issues such as capital restructuring, dividend, bonus shares".
Singh further said there has been reduction in coal
imports by the NTPC due to increased production of the fossil fuel by Coal India.
The company said the Uday programme has started showing results as there is an increase in the power demand.
"Some of the discoms which were failing to buy power have started buying more power post Uday," Singh said.

Stressing that the company has a major share as far as solar capacity addition is concerned, Singh said:"We are going to add 10,000 out of 100 GW capacity. Out of this 10 GW will be our contribution and as of now we have 310 MW capacity under operation...."
Stating about its operations, the company said it has recorded highest ever gross generation of 241.98 billion units in 2015-16.
NTPC (coal-based stations) achieved a PLF of 78.61 per cent in 2015-16 against the national average of 62 per cent.
"Average tariff has reduced from Rs 3.24 paise in 2014-15 to Rs 3.18 paise in 2015-16 and there is 40 per cent reduction in imports because of increase in coal production by CIL," the CMD said.

The company further said Pakri-Barwadih coal mining project in Jharkhand has started operations, paving the way for coal production.
"We believe in the next three to four months we will start extracting coal from there," Singh said.
The flexibility of usage in coal has the potential to save Rs 200-300 crore per month to the company, NTPC said.
The company said that its fertiliser JV with Coal India will fetch 12 per cent assured return and added that another PSU will join the JV.
It further said the company's zero water discharge road map has been prepared which is likely to be implemented fully in another two-three years and added that most plants have already adopted it.

The company further said it has spent Rs 492 crore on CSR last year adding that output from captive coal mine will positively impact its bottom line.
"We would be revisiting corporate plan to see if we can increase renewable energy portfolio," the CMD said adding that the company will put up 1000-MW wind projects on lines of solar auction.