The Power Minister, Mr Sushilkumar Shinde, has said over 28,000 MW of electricity generation capacity will be in the country during the current financial year (2011-12).
“Over 28,000 MW of power projects are under construction... to be commissioned by March 2012,” he said, adding that the capacity addition would be from all sources of energy — coal, hydro, gas, etc.
Over 21,000 MW of the targeted 28,000 MW would be contributed by thermal power projects, approximately 4,100 MW would come from hydro power projects and the remaining 2,500 MW would be nuclear energy.
The Ministry has so far been able to add 34,462 MW of power during the current Plan period. The Planning Commission had revised the Power Ministry’s earlier plan of adding over 78,000 MW power during the XI Five-Year Plan Period (2007-12) to 62,000 MW.
However, the Ministry is finding it difficult to meet the revised target due to the sluggish progress on hydro power projects.
It added over 12,000 MW of electricity by commissioning 42 power projects by March 2011, of which five are state-run NTPC’s projects. Also, as many as seven projects will be connected to the national grid in a couple of weeks.
“Over 3,600 MW of electricity would be attached to the grid in the next 2-3 weeks,” the Minister added.
The Power Ministry has set a target of adding over 1,00,000 MW of electricity during the XII Plan (2012-2017).
“Not only this Plan period, about 79,000 MW of power projects are under construction already,” he said.