August 6, 2013

Private sector investment in power sector decreased by a whopping 44% last financial year to Rs 54,953 crore from 98,283 crore a year ago, Power Minister Jyotiraditya M. Scindia said. Industry experts said private investment has further declined in the current financial year. The declining trend in investments was due to uncertainties in fuel supply, regulatory affairs and policy framework.

Whatever investments we have seen so far are in projects that were planned earlier. Companies with existing plants are suffering losses due to fuel scarcity, so the ability to invest is low. On average, 27% of the country’s available 1,46,000 mw power generation capacity is under outage.