Power generation misses Plan target

Addition in the 10th Plan period will be just about half the targeted 41,000 Mw.

The power generation capacity has to grow by at least 10 per cent to sustain the current GDP growth of 9 per cent, say industry experts.

"Ideally, the ratio of energy generation and GDP growth should be 1:1," says PC Shekhar Reddy of Indian Institute of Public Administration, who has been studying the power sector.

However, data collated by Business Standard for the last 16-17 years clearly show the deteriorating power situation with rising energy shortages. At 9.3 per cent energy shortage and 13.9 per cent of peak time shortage ""the highest in the past nine years""there is obviously an urgent need for an aggressive and focused approach for capacity addition.

The addition in the 10th Plan period, which ends in about ten days from now, will be just about half the targeted 41,000 Mw, according to industry sources. The story was not too different in the last Plan (1997-2002) or the one before that.

On the distribution front, there has been little solace in the overall transmission and distribution losses or the broader measure of aggregate technical and commercial losses. Over a third of the power generated fails to reach the consumer in the process.

The transmission segment too requires massive investment to boost capacity.

The situation in the coming five years too looks grim, though the government has set a target of adding a record 76,000 Mw of generation capacity in the 11th Plan.

With most experts dismissing this target as unrealistic, the slogan of "power for all" by 2012 also sounds increasingly hollow.