PFC to contribute Rs 200 cr in proposed India Power Fund

Kolkata, Jan 24 (UNI) India Power Fund, a venture capital fund of Power Finance Corporation, will be operational by March this fiscal with a corpus of Rs 1000 crore and LIC as a major partner.

Speaking on the sidelines of a press conference, Power Finance Corporation Project Director Shyam Wadhera said here today that PFC will contribute Rs 200 crore in this India Power Fund. LIC will be the major partner in the fund. Various commercial banks and multilateral funding agencies will also contribute in this corpus.'' The power sector would need an investment of more than 0 billion to add 68,000 mw of additional generation capacity, besides transmission and distribution network by 2012. The fund would be utilised to assist these projects.

India Power Fund was announced in February 2004 by the NDA government to meet the shortfall in equity needs for the power sector.

Speaking about another project, Mr Wadhera said the Corporation has identified 26 power stations and would fund these, along with NTPC, to increase generation and power suplly under the Centre's Accelerated Generation and Supply Fund.

UNI