September 08, 2008

More players needed in power equipment manufacturing

Mr Sushilkumar Shinde union power minister said that creating more players in the area of power equipment manufacturing would be one of the major areas of his initiatives in the coming few months.

Mr Shinde, while delivering the keynote address after inaugurating the India Electricity 2007, said that lack of adequate domestic manufacturing capacity for generation equipment has been a major bottleneck in the way of timely completion of generation projects therefore creating more players in this field is the only way to increase capacities, bring in cost-competitiveness and accountability to timelines.

Mr Shinde said that the capacity addition of 78,000 MW in the next 5 years is not too ambitious a target as various projects of a total capacity of 50,000 MW are already under implementation and the balance orders are expected to be placed by the end of this year. He said there is a plan to establish a state of the art IT enabled energy accounting system all over the country to reduce aggregate technical and commercial losses of around 35% to a much more respectable level of 15%.

He informed that the gathering as desired by the Dr Manmohan Singh Prime Minister of India during the chief ministers’ conference in May 2007, a standing group of ministers with due representation from states, to address all the major issues confronting the power sector has now been appointed and it will be having its first meeting later this month.

India Electricity 2007 is a 3 day seminar jointly organized by the ministry of power and the federation of Indian chambers of commerce and industry for showcasing the immense investment opportunities that the Indian power sector offers.