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| Govt monopoly in coal a major hurdle for power sector: Economic Survey |
| Press Trust of India / New Delhi Jul 02, 2009, 13:09 IST |
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Both capacity addition and efficiency in existing plants hit on poor supply. Survey moots private entry in coal mining
Making a case for private sector's entry into the coal sector, the pre-budget Economic Survey today said the nationalised coal sector is a major roadblock in the steady growth of power sector, which is the largest consumer of the dry fuel.
"As long as the coal sector remains a public sector "monopoly", it could remain a bottle neck for accelerated development of the power sector," said the Economic Survey 2008-09 tabled in the Parliament today.
It recommended private entry into coal mining under a well regulated and competitive coal sector to help reverse the substitution of domestic coal by imported oil and coal.
The reasons for the lower growth in power generation during the last financial year (2008-09) were — shortage of coal and gas, shortfall in capacity addition, delay in achieving commercial operation or commencement of full generation from the plants etc.
The Plant Load Factor (PLF) or the efficiency of the coal-based thermal power plants declined during the period due to loss of generation because of shortage of fuel among other things, the survey pointed out.
The power sector consumes nearly 74 per cent of the country's coal production. Coal-fired thermal plants account for 66 per cent of the total 1,49,392 Mw power generation in the country.
The dependence on imported coal went up from about 10.2 million tonnes to about 16 million tonnes in 2008-09, the survey revealed.
The capacity addition target for 2008-09 was 7,530 Mw including 5,773 Mw thermal against which a capacity of 3,454 MW has been added up to March 31, 2009.
The reasons for the underachievement of the target were delayed and non-sequential supply of material by suppliers, shortage of skilled manpower for construction and commissioning of projects, contractual disputes between project authorities, contractors and their sub-vendors, delay in readiness of balance of plants by the executing agencies.
The survey proposed that a competitive electricity production market that pays the full global cost of fuel will help eliminate inefficiences in the current monopolistic state electricity supply system, where right from generation to distribution of power is handled by the respective state electricity boards.
The survey proposes amendment in the Atomic Energy Act to permit private and foreign corporate investment up to 49 per cent in nuclear power projects.
Meanwhile, it also said the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana and other energy programmes should focus on gobar gas and solar energy in hilly or distant regions of the country.
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