Interviews

The Indian power sector is undergoing important changes that are redefining the industry outlook. Persistent economic growth continues to drive power demand in India. The government had taken various initiatives in order to achieve the power generation target for FY2016.

Yes. The Modi Government deserves to be complimented for above achievements since we have been a power deficit nation for decades. Our per capita power consumption is one third that of China and the world´s average.

Primarily, as an industry player, I seek reforms in the transmission and distribution sectors. If we bring down the current T&D losses, which stands at 26 per cent, by around 10 per cent, we can save Rs 3 lakh crore worth of power.

We all know that power is the most important and basic aspect of any industry, and that power in India is in shortage and of poor quality, unless we improve upon this we can´t expect investment. Though there has been a lot of improvement in the power situation, we are yet to see any significant impact in terms of growth in investment and business due to all this.

I concur that the overall generation in the country has increased from 967.150 BU during 2013-14 to 1,048.673 BU during 2014-15. It can also be noted that, the thermal power sector has achieved a maximum growth rate of 10.83 per cent, which is the highest in a single year since 2008-09. Another important matrix to take into consideration is that India has witnessed lowest ever reduction of power deficit of 3.6 per cent during 2014-15.

Highest annual capacity addition in last one year is a fact that cannot be denied, but at the same time it is also a fact that PLF which was 77.5 per cent in 2009-10, has dropped to 64.46 per cent in 2014-15. This indicates that the capacity created is not being utilised optimally, and the reasons should be looked into and addresse

Success is subjective and we are trying our level best to get more transparency in the black diamond sector. To start with, we are looking at one billion tonne of coal production from the current level of 500 million tonne in the next five years.

Our sector is one where you have long gestation periods and one can´t see results overnight. The last year has been a mixed bag; as they say, ´you win some, you lose some!´ Clearly, there have been positive initiatives from the new government, such as improvement in coal production, efforts to partially mitigate the problem of stranded gas-based generation, proposed changes in the Electricity Act, etc.

Globally, the success of solar energy deployment has been completely dependent on certain external factors. India is no different. With an encouraging 2013, the industry was more confident about the next couple of years. However, with issues like key administrative changes and anti-dumping concerns, the investment decision was stalled by some international players.