Jairam Ramesh expresses concern over power situation

Vadodara, Jun 1 (UNI) Expressing serious concern over the widening gap between demand and supply of power in the country, Union Minister of State for Power Jairam Ramesh today said India must add another 15,000 MW every year as China was doing to cope up with the increasing demand.

''In the last 20 years, the country has been able to add on an average 4500 MW power annually'' Ramesh told reporters after reviewing the implementation of various power projects in Gujarat at a high-level meeting with different power companies here.

Contrary to the demand, he said his ministry had set an additional generating capacity of 11,000 MW for the current year as against last year's capacity addition of 9200 MWs.

He disclosed that Gujarat will be adding 1453 MW of power by December 2008, with the commissioning of three on=going power projects in Surat and Kutch districts.

A 75 MW lignite-based power unit, set up by GSECL at Kutch, was all set to be commissioned in July and GIPCL's 250 MW lignite-based project and Torrent Group's 1128 MW coal-based power units would be commissioned by December this year in Surat. With the commissioning of these power projects, the installed capacity of the state would increase from 9600 MW to 11053 MW, Ramesh said adding that the state had got another eight power generation projects of 15000 MW at the planning stage.

He said the first 800 MW unit of India's first 4000 MW ultra mega power project, being set up by the Tatas at Mundra in Kutch district, was expected to be commissioned by March 2011.

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