October 16, 2008

Steps taken for boosting power generation during 11th plan

Mr Jairam Ramesh union minister of state for power said that steps have been taken for timely commissioning of 11th plan generation projects. The details are as follows

1) According to information received from Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, it has enhanced its capacity to deliver 10,000 MW of main plant equipment per annum. Furthermore, they have put in place an action plan to enhance capacity to deliver 15,000 MW per annum by December 2009.

2) A JV agreement has been signed between NTPC Limited and BHEL to take up work related to engineering, procurement and construction for power plants and other infrastructure projects. NTPC has also entered into a MoU with Bharat Forge Limited to promote a JV company initially to take up the manufacture of castings, forgings, fittings and high pressure piping.

3) Private sector power equipment manufacturers have also set up power generation equipment manufacture facilities.

4) All stakeholders have been sensitized towards enlarging the vendor base so as to meet the balance of plants requirements.

5) To address the issue of shortage of manpower, ministry of power has taken initiative and power project developers have been asked to adopt an ITI in the vicinity of the project area to build the skilled and semi skilled work force required for the projects.

6) There is an acute shortage of gas for power projects. Only those gas based projects have been taken up for which gas has already been tied up. An additional capacity of 13,000 MW gas based projects is feasible only if gas is made available at reasonable price.

7) The monitoring mechanism has been made more robust. The Central Electricity Authority has got a nodal official associated with each on going project who continuously monitors the progress at site through frequent visits and continuous interaction. A power project monitoring panel comprising of 7 independent monitoring consultants is also being operationalized.