The Planning Commission wants more power equipment manufacturers like public sector Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (Bhel) to come up if the country has to meet its energy needs in coming years.
“At present, Bhel is the only such company that makes equipment needed for power generation. But, more such private facilities must be set up if we are to add to our power generation capacities,” said BK Chaturvedi, member (power) of the Planning Commission. Depending only on one manufacturer and leaving the rest on imports could not be an ideal situation, he added.
Chaturvedi said utilities capable of generating around 80,000mw required to be set up during both the 11th and the 12th Plan. So, India could not continue to live with just one power equipment manufacturer.
Chaturvedi was addressing the inaugural session of the two-day national seminar on power sector reforms & consumer advocacy on Saturday. The seminar were co-hosted by XLRI and the Jharkhand State Electricity Regulatory Commission.
“They (Bhel) can’t meet your requirement, they must have competition; we have asked the committee under the secretary (power) to work on this,” said Chaturvedi, adding that the issue was also being considered by the committee under the finance ministry.
The Planning Commission will also set up a group which will make recommendations on open access for private participation as high tariff was preventing both investment and competition in the power sector.
The group, Chaturvedi said, would suggest policy measures for building up new manufacturing facilities.
According to him, the ministry of heavy industry was being asked to advise Bhel to make investments quickly so that the PSU could complete its capacity expansion to 10,000mw by December 2007 and to 15,000mw by March 2009.
For quicker completion of power projects, Bhel should be asked to install
IT-based monitoring systems at every project site and also delegate financial powers and allow flexibility to its project managers in order to make them accountable for completion of projects within schedule, Chaturvedi said.
