"The target for the month of June will be difficult to be met. From the total target for the month (1,761 Mw), a greater part is to come from nuclear and gas based power plants, which might not happen" said Jairam Ramesh, minister of state for power.
From the total target of 1761 Mw for June, 440 Mw is expected to come from nuclear and 464 Mw is to come from gas based power plants.
The minister also added that the entire capacity addition plan for the year will be restructured. "We are restructuring the entire capacity addition plan for the year. All our nuclear plants are currently running at 50 percent efficiency because of unavailability of Uranium. Availability of gas is also another problem. " he said.
The power ministry has set up a total capacity addition target of 11,061 Mw in the current year (2008-09). The targets for April and May - 310 and 210 Mw respectively - have been largely met.
The addition to power generation capacity last year has also been much worse than what the official figures show.The power ministry had recently revealed that out of the total thermal capacity of 6,629 Mw publicly declared commissioned last year (2007-08), more than half - about 3810 Mw - is yet to actually be commissioned.
This is one of the reasons for high power deficits in the country.
