Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
We have in these pages often discussed the dismal position of power generation and distribution in Orissa and have stressed on how to bring in improvements. An eminent power engineer and management expert of Orissa has sent us a five-point proposal that he expects, if adopted by Orissa, can change the scenario. Originally meant for national purpose, the proposals look equally relevant to our state of Orissa. In view of this and in seeking opinion of experts on the proposal, we prefer to place the same verbatim.
1.The new Govt. should put a thrust on Nuclear Energy Generation Programme so that the existing 17 nos. reactors pan India Operating at a PLF of 45% at present should operate at a PLF of above 90% with imported uranium and the nuclear Power generation of the country is scaled up to 22,000 MW by 2022, 63,000 MW by 2032 and 4,12,000 MW by 2050 to meet the Power demand and to contain global warming.
2. In order to attain 20/20 & 50/50 ( 20% and 50% of the energy requirement from Renewable sources by 2020 & 2050 respectively) the Govt. should establish a separate PSU/ Corporation under MNRE for generating Power from Renewable sources in the pattern of NTPC and NHPC so that India should lead the comity of nations as a true global leader in producing green energy to combat global warming even retaining its growth in GDP @ 9%.
3. The Govt. should immediately take a decision on the proposal of the Planning Commission for setting of up a National Electricity Fund (NEF) with a corpus of Rs 1 lakh – Rs. 1.50 lakh crore to finance the development of the T&D Network for installing new transmission lines and transformers using state-of-the art technology so as to reduce the T&D loss to 15% by 2012.
4. India has never attained the target set for capacity addition in the past plan periods and faced a slippage due to poor delivery / supply of main plant equipments and balance of plants by BHEL which ultimately leads to the present dismal power shortage scenario both in energy and demand. Govt. of India should therefore enhance the manufacturing capacity of BHEL to 20,000 MW by 2012 and should encourage leading Power Equipment Manufacturers’ joint ventures like L&T – Mitsubishi, Toshiba – JSW, Alstom – Bharat Forge, Ansaldo – GB Engineering , Reliance Infra – Shanghai Electric Co. etc. to have their power equipment manufacturing base of above 40,000 MW by 2015 to meet the demand targeted in XII &XIII plan periods.
5. It is pity that India at 62 ( as on 28.02.2009) has only electrified 4,88,926 (82.3 %) villages. Govt. of India should prioritize to have 100% electrification of all 6,25,000 villages when India is 63 in 2010 and stick to its mission “POWER ON DEMAND” in 2012 when India turns 65.