6 May, 2011

Country’s power demand is seen rising 55.6 per cent to 1,400 billion kilowatt hours (bkwh) by the end of next five year plan period that ends in March 2017 Power Secretary P. Umashankar said. He said the country needs to add 100,000 megawatt of generation capacity during the period to meet the expected demand.As the country is growing in a fast phased manner, it is expected that the energy demand will also rise proportionately. Though government had an aggressive capacity addition plan, it failed to meet the targets in the year ended 31 March 2011. However, the power minister is optimistic that the country will meet the capacity addition targets for the 12th plan period.