In a setback to initial public offer (IPO)-ready Coal India, the Jharkhand government has rejected a forest clearance for a railway link being planned for evacuation of coal from the North Karanpura coalfield operated by the coal miner.
Timely commissioning of over 50,000 Mw of power generation capacity has been jeopardised owing to the environment ministry's latest move to classify India's coal-bearing regions as "go" and "no-go" areas. This comes at a time when the country is striving to bridge the widening gap in the demand and supply of electricity.
While the government is pushing for the use of renewable energy in rural areas to address the twin problems of climate change and scarcity of power, the nodal ministry for carrying out the exercise has not been performing well.
While the mechanism of auctioning commodities like coal and electricity and telecom spectrum at electronic platforms has brought in transparency in their allocation, experts believe that the strategy cannot fructify until the prevailing shortfall in their availability is met.
This comes at a time when the country's total commercial energy requirement is expected to grow at 5-6 per cent to a massive 1,667 million tonne oil equivalent (Mtoe) required to achieve and sustain a 9 per cent gross domestic product growth rate in the next two decades, as per planning commission's projection.
PFC provides loan syndication, along with 18 other institutions, mostly banks and Life Insurance Corporation and Hudco, under the Power Lenders' Club.
The government's initiative to set up a high-capacity power transmission link between India and Sri Lanka is likely to be completed by 2013.
Coal-based generators plan upgrades, clean tech over 5 years.
Power is one of the six major sectors contributing to the country's infrastructure in addition to cement, steel, coal, crude oil and petroleum products. The growth of these sectors account for more than a quarter in the IIP.
Fresh power capacity addition has fallen short of target by nearly a third in the first half (April-September) of the current fiscal, owing to delays in the supply of critical components in thermal projects, delayed forest clearances and non-availability of fuel for a nuclear power project.
Meeting will confine discussion to processes involved in building consensus among members.
The delay in the monsoon arrival had caused water storage to touch a historic low of 9 per cent in June (see table), as per data from the Central Water Commission. The latest data of Central Electricity Authority shows daily power availability in the country was 0.7 per cent ahead of demand on August 12 from an 8-10 per cent deficit last month.
India will commission its first 500-Mw fast breeder reactor (FBR) for generating commercial nuclear energy by the end of next year. The reactor, when commissioned, will mark the country's entry into the second phase of its three-stage nuclear energy programme.
In a written reply to a question asked in Parliament earlier this week, minister of state for power Bharatsinh Solanki admitted that the coal stock position at some of NTPC's power stations had depleted. NTPC Ltd, the country's largest power generator, however, denies any shortage of dry fuel.
Two traders - Jindal Steel and Power Ltd and GMR Energy Ltd - have already surrendered their licences.
The Union government's six-year initiative to unbundle state electricity boards into separate entities for power generation, transmission, distribution and trading businesses is set to be delayed further, with seven states still to do so, even as the Centre's latest time-limit expired on June 30. After 6 years of pushing, just 14 states have turned these into separate units.
With deficient monsoon reducing hydropower generation in the country by around 40 per cent, the power ministry has started stressing more on power from coal and natural gas.
the terminal will not be used to run the Dabhol power plant and would be supplied entirely to other domestic companies
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs to decide on a Planning Commission proposal to allocate a portion of power generated from Centrally-owned utilities for open access to large consumers.
The company has four lenders -- State Bank of India, IDBI, ICICI and Canara Bank. According to the Reserve Bank of India norms, these loans would be declared as NPAs if the project is not financially restructured by March 31, 2009. The restructuring exercise includes a 50 per cent hike in the tariff for sale of power from the project, to be allowed by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission. The project is expected to become viable after this.
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