The Uttar Pradesh Cabinet on Friday announced a new Energy Policy 2009, which envisages that the per capita consumption of power would increase from the meager 370 units at present to 1,000 units by 2017.
Another important decision taken was to allow cogenerating units run on bagasse and bio mass to use multi-fuel facility such as coal in the off season. At present, once the sugar crushing season is over and the availability of bagasse stops, the co-generation plants sit idle.
?These units can either use coal or gas to run the machines all round the year and can sell 50% of the power produced through traditional fuels outside the state and 10% of the energy to a third party in the radius of 50 kms of their unit,” an energy department official said.
The policy would ensure that every family in the state has access to electricity and for this the state government plans to generate 10,000 mw of power by the end of 2014 and 32,000 mw by 2017. ?To achieve this target, we will open up the MoU route with the private sector apart from taking recourse to the Case 1 and Case 11 routes,” said the official. Under Case I, the private developer has to make arrangement for the land, fuel and water linkages, while under Case 11 the government is responsible for all this and then calls for competitive bids.In the transmission sector too, the state government has opened the gates for private sector investment in projects worth Rs 8,000 crore through PPP.
It may be mentioned that the new energy policy has been made with the express need to rope in private investors to the power sector, which is in urgent need of big ticket investments, be it in generation, transmission or distribution. The state government is busy doing some quick homework so as to showcase state?s seriousness in doing business and its reliability in investment areas.
