Infra PSUs pledge to invest, tap FM for fuel, clearances
Heads of SAIL, ONGC, Oil India, NTPC, Coal India, BHEL, MMTC and NMDC discussed their capacity expansion plans with the minister, who sought to identify the problems facing committed investments.
The finance minister is on a drive to return the investment rate to 38% of GDP seen during the boom years half a decade ago. Friday’s meeting comes against the backdrop of a three-year low in economic growth at 5.5% in the June quarter and a marginal contraction in industrial growth in April-July.
NTPC, which is planning to invest R20,000 crore this fiscal and R2 lakh crore over the next five years, said the company apprised the minister of the problems with fuel linkage.
India is facing a shortage of natural gas, while controversies on allocation of mines and regional moratorium on coal mining have affected the fuel supply of many power projects. NTPC CMD Arup Roy Choudhury said he anticipated some direction from the finance minister on fuel linkage for power projects after Wednesday’s meeting.
SAIL chairman CS Verma said the steel major had finalised an investment Rs 45,000 crore for the five years up to 2017. SAIL is exploring the possibility of further raising this planned investment by Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 crore.
“We apprised the minister about our capex plans. Our
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