National Grid will be enhanced to 37,000 MW BY 2012: Shinde

New Delhi, Feb 20 (UNI) Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde today said the capacity of the National Grid which stands at 11,500 MW will be enhanced gradually to about 18,400 MW this year and to more than 37,000 MW by 2012.

The Consultative Committee of the Members of Parliament (MPs) for the Ministry of Power met here under the chairmanship of Mr Shinde to discuss the development of National Grid.

The MPs lauded the pioneering efforts of the Powergrid in conceptualising the National Grid by interconnecting all the regional grids.

Mr Shinde informed them that at present no other country in the world has a National Grid, not even the US.

Stressing the importance of power sector to achieve the growth rate of nine per cent per annum, he said with capacity addition, an efficient transmission and distribution system is the need of the hour.

He said starting with 1,362 MW at the time of independence, the country today has the installed capacity of about 1,28,000 MW and considering the accelerated growth and commitment to provide electricity to all by 2012 another 70,000 MW need to be added.

The Minister said large sized power stations need to be built at the resource end and bulk power needs to be transmitted to distantly located load centres through a vast network.

Various issues related to transmission of power came up for discussion during the course of the meeting including conservation of Right-of-Way, protection of environment and forest and adequate training to engineers, etc.

UNI