GCF for India electricity sector down 1/6 of 2010 levels

Gross capital formation in the electricity sector is down to a level which is nearly one sixth of what was prevailing in the pervious year.

In its presentation to the High level Committee on financing infrastructure, the Ministry of Statistics and programme implementation justified the move as a correction of the earlier figures estimated in a study carried out by RBI, which the Ministry termed as unrealistic as the net value added was coming out to be negative, something which is improbable.

However, even the revised data were deemed to be incomplete as some major players such as Adani power have been left out of the loop.

Adani Power, it was noted has recently commissioned two 660 MW super critical units at Mundra and a 400 KV 430 km double ckt transmission line. Also the company is constructing power projects of total capacity of 16,500 MW and  1,000 MW km long 500 KV HVDC transmission line from Mundra to northern India.

Moreover, the GCF of JP hydro has been pegged at a mere 50 lakh, which the committee noted was too less since they are constructing several HEPs, worth a lot more than the said amount.

Accordingly, the committee suggested that the Central Statistics Office update the list of all private companies in consultation with the CEA to prepare GCF estimates by taking into consideration projects with large investments immediately.