Planning Commission member Kirit Parikh today said the target of adding 78,700Mw power generation capacity in the current plan period may fall short, but the progress so far was satisfactory.
"I feel that if not 78,700Mw, we might certainly go as close to 70,000 MW which would be much higer percentage" Parikh said when asked whether the targeted power generation addition could be achieved in the current plan period ending 2012.
"However, this is good as compared to the capacity addition of only 50 per cent in the last plan period," he said, adding that compared to the targeted 40,000Mw addition in the previous plan period only a half of it was actually achieved.
India's total installed capacity stood at 1,47,402.81Mw as on March 31, 2008. The country targets to add 59,693Mw thermal power, 15,627 MW through hydro and the remaining 3,380Mw from Nuclear power in the current plan period.
Stressing the need of sufficient energy in the economy, Parikh said that private sector might be permitted in the nuclear power sector.
With declining reserves of coal, there was a need to tap hydro and solar energy sources to jack up the country's power generation capacity, he said.
