Mr Sushilkumar Shinde union power minister has said that the 11th Plan power capacity addition target of 78000 MW was achievable if we get timely supply of coal, gas and equipment.

Inaugurating the 12th India Power Forum on the theme: Challenges of Mitigating Power Shortage organized by India Energy Forum, in New Delhi he said that the Power Ministry’s reviews indicated that despite the problems of supply from coal, gas and equipment manufacturing sectors. There is a high degree of certainty that we could still achieve over 62, 000 MW during the Plan period.” This he added will be almost three times of what we have achieved in any one Plan period.

Expressing concern over inadequate power plant equipment manufacturing capacity in India of less than 10, 000 MW the minister said that “This constituted one of the biggest hurdles in our ambitious expansion program. With four new joint ventures in equipment manufacturing coming up, apart from the existing Bhel in five years, the total manufacturing capacity was expected to rise to over 25,000 MW per year.”

Responding to the observations by Mr P S Bami president of India Energy Forum the Minister said that in order to speed up decision making on import of coal for power plants, the Power Ministry is establishing its own Cell which will be in place by December. The Cell will start functioning from January 2010.

He said that “This would eliminate the difficulties and delaying tactics of the importing agencies adding that he was exploring the possibility of taking Australian coal mines on lease, for which he had had a discussion with the Australian Coal Minister whom he met recently in France.”

(Sourced from www.constructionweekonline)