Share this story! India’s corporate sector loses Rs342bn due to power outages Tuesday, July 07, 2009 By Mehtab Haider ISLAMABAD: Power outages and poor electricity supply is playing havoc with the Indian economy, as the corporate sector of India alone lost Rs342 billion in 2008-09. A document about the prevalent power generation scene in India states that India’s GDP grew by 9 per cent since 2004; annual revenue loss attributed to power cuts has almost been 12 per cent in the last five years. “The reasons are attributed to inefficient and corrupt State Electricity Boards (SEBs) as the central government in India has advised state governments to unbundle their electricity boards into separate bodies for power generation, transmission and distribution,” the document stated. The private sector in India is setting up generation plants while getting into the distribution businesses as well. In 2008-09, a mere 3453MW of generation capacity was added in the system against a target of 11061MW. India has a generating capacity of 1,47,402MW which is not sufficient to meet demands, owing to which Mumbai, Delhi and many other parts of India suffer from power cuts during peak summer months. The bulk of Indian power generation, around 93,000MW, is accounted by coal-fired and thermal plants, with hydro accounting for 36,000MW.In the tenth Five Year Plan (2002-07), India had set a target of 41,000MW additional generation capacity, but it could achieve just 21,000MW. During the current Five Year Plan (2007-2012), it has raised the target to 78,000MW of additional capacity. India’s Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has fixed a generation target (April 2009-March 2010) at 3,23,387MW from a mix of thermal, nuclear and hydro sources. CEA is backed by state sector generation units and private sectors/IPPs. According to CEA, installed generation capacity as on 31-5-2009, all India-wise has been listed as 1,49,391,91MW, which includes a mix of thermal, nuclear, hydro and renewable resources. The CEA’s all-India power supply and demand shows that total supply stood at 67820MW against demand of 109439MW on May 2009.