NEW DELHI: The Centre has convened a meeting of the Chief Ministers on May 28 to discuss the bleak power scenario in the country. The possible steps that could be taken to augment the generation capacity and strengthen the transmission and distribution in the States by re-organising the State Electricity Boards would be discussed.

Manmohan's concern

This follows the serious concern shown by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last month over the bleak power situation and the increasing incidence of power theft. Last month, the Centre had convened a meeting of the Chief Ministers as well as the Chief Secretaries to review the progress made in dealing with the emerging situation and the steps taken to implement the power reforms programme.

The energy and peak shortage during March was 10.4 per cent (6,380 million units) and 13.7 per cent (13,728 MW). While the energy shortage during April remained at the level of 10.4 per cent, the peak shortage increased marginally to 13.9 per cent or 14,405 MW. During April, the overall increase in generation was to the order of 8.6 per cent compared to April 2006, and the Plant Load Factor (PLF) of thermal power stations also increased to 81.8 per cent compared to 78.3 per cent last year.

There is great concern over the slippage of a large number of generation projects of the 10th Five-Year Plan to the 11th Plan.

With the Power Ministry setting an ambitious target of 74,000 MW for the 11th Plan, the role of the State Government is of great importance to ensure time-bound implementation of the generation projects.

However, what has been the area of concern for the Ministry is the inability of a large number of States to reform their transmission and distribution systems that has led to high losses.

There has also been concern over the reluctance to undertake reforms in the SEBs resulting in huge losses.

"The latest controversy over the ambitious scheme of the Power Ministry to set up 4,000 MW each of nine Ultra Mega Power Projects has not helped matters.

The delay in clearing the Sasan project in Madhya Pradesh and also to finalise the Krishnapatnam UMPP in Andhra Pradesh has put a question mark over the ability to achieve the 74,000 MW target during the next five years," a senior Ministry official said.

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