PMO is mining through the 410-odd

stalled investment projects worth 19.5

lakh crore that have sought and await an
intervention from the project monitoring
group in the cabinet secretariat. The
group was set up by the UPA government
in July 2013 to help negotiate hurdles
holding up large investments. Officials
from this group were present at these
meetings.
This is a very focused and meaningful
exercise where decisions are being taken
with a clear roadmap outlined for each
stalled project to be operationalised.
When an issue is beyond the realm of
possible solutions, it's being ruled out
straight away rather than let it linger in
sus-pense, said another official, who at
tended one of these meetings in the PMO
this week.
While state chief secretaries and line
ministries like power, railways and finance
have been asked to expedite clearances
and other issues in their domains that
have been scuttling specific projects, in a
few cases, promoters have also been asked
to bring more funds on to the table to
make the project viable rather than expect
banks and financiers to take haircuts
alone. There are projects where
developers have put up little equity and
have left banks in the lurch citing lack of
clearances, though in reality, their real
concern is poor market condition and
leveraged balance-sheets, said an official.
The Economic Times; July 9, 2015
(Edited)

Powerinfo Weekly
Volume 1(9); 3 July 9 July 2015

The Economic Times Magazine; July

5, 2015
PMO
takes
charge
to
revive
investment cycle
VIKAS DHOOT & SUGATA GHOSH
New Delhi/Mumbai: Principal Secretary
at the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) met
bankers, project promoters, top ministry
officials and chief secretaries of states to
resolve hurdles delaying investments
across sectors The PMO has taken charge
of reviving the investment cycle and
unravelling
banks'
chronic
nonperforming assets on account of
investment plans worth lakhs of crores of
rupees that have got entangled in red tape
over the past few years. Over the past
three days, Principal Secretary in the
PMO Nripendra Misra has held hectic,
virtually daylong parleys to arrive at a
swift resolution of the hurdles delaying
big-ticket investments across sectors.
Stuck projects of companies like Tata
Power, Avantha, Lanco, GMR and Essar
Power, among others, were discussed.
Decision on as many as 22 projects were
taken, a person aware of the
development, said.
There is a realisation at the highest level
that the investment climate is still tepid
and not much is moving on the ground in
terms of developers commissioning fresh
capacities or launching greenfield and
brownfield projects, said a top
government official, adding that job
creation would also remain subdued
unless these projects are unshackled. The

Fin Min to bail out stalled

power projects, frail SEBs

Govt seeks to revive investment, lower

NPAs
SUBHASH NARAYAN & MUKESH
JAGOTA
New Delhi: The finance ministry is
looking to bail out the power sector by
helping projects that are stuck for want of
funds and offering a new restructuring
window to the state electricity boards that
have piled up losses to the tune of
2,00,000 crore. The ministry has called a
meeting of power sector representatives,
1

The finance ministry should get RBI on

board to allow restructuring of loans to
power projects that are delayed for no
fault of project proponents, without
categorising these as stressed assets, as
that would attract stiffer provisioning
norms. The current situation could
dissuade banks from extending the term
of any loan, said an official with a private
sector
power
project
developer.
Government estimates show power
projects of about 60,000 MW are either
stranded or facing delays due to lack of
statutory clearances. Out of this capacity,
about 15,000 MW are gas-based plants
stranded due to fuel shortage. A host of
other thermal power plants have missed
commercial operation dates due to delay
in getting fuel linkages. These projects
now need support from banks to get their
debt restructured. But banks are wary of
doing this, as higher provisioning would
weaken their financial health.
RBI has warned of a possible spike in bad
loans in the sector. The heavily-indebted
companies have been hit by slowing
demand for power from states that prefer
load shedding over buying additional
power for their indebted SEBs. Finance
minister Arun Jaitley had last month
indicated that the government would
identify sectors and specific projects that
could be revived without putting stress on
the banks. The financial services
secretary, and if necessary at my level,
will be calling a meeting of the
representatives of state governments,
those projects and the departments
concerned over the next few days and try
to resolve the issues, Jaitley had said.
Financial Chronicle; July 8, 2015
(Edited)

bankers, RBI officials and other

government departments to revive power
projects that are held up either due to
financial stress or other reasons. This is
part of efforts to get the investment cycle
moving again. Also, the government fears
that delays in power projects can turn
bank exposure into non-performing assets
(NPAs).
Late last month, the finance ministry held
a similar meeting for steel projects
following a warning from RBI that steel
firms might add to the banks bad loan
burden.
The government will also discuss a new
and focused restructuring plan for SEBs,
whose financial constraints have been
weighing on deliverables such as tariff
fixing and improvement of the
distribution infrastructure.
The power sector is a cause of concern
for banks due to their high exposure to
the sector. The ministry would look at
those projects where problems can be
resolved easily so that they could go on
stream soon, a senior govern-ment
official said. The total exposure of banks
to the power sector stands at 6,00,000
crore or about 9-10% of total advances.
But the sector already has a whopping
16% share in total stressed advances of
banks.
At a time when gross NPAs of banks have
risen to 4.3% of total advances in FY15
from 3.9% in the previous financial year as
per RBI data, any addition to distressed
assets could be a destabilising factor for
the entire industry. An even bigger
concern for banks is with respect of the
SEBs. The public sector lenders total
exposure to the SEBs now stands at 3.4%
of total loans, or roughly 1,60,000
crore, out of which around 72,000
crore, or 46%, has already been
restructured. The restructuring done in
2012 allowed a 3-year moratorium for the
principal amount. If the power utilities
now fail to pay the principal and/or
interest by June 30 (90 days from the end
of moratorium), these will turn into
NPAs.

Govt devising contingency plan

for power supply

Plan includes deferment of planned

shutdown of plants in northern region,
diversion of gas from west to north
UTPAL BHASKAR
New Delhi: The government is working
on a plan to mitigate the impact of a
deficient monsoon on electricity supply,
2

particularly in states such as Delhi,

Punjab, Rajasthan and UP. The
government believes that while western,
eastern, north-eastern and southern
regions will be able to manage the supply
position during the monsoon months, the
northern region, comprising states such
as Haryana, HP, J&K, Uttarakhand, and
Chhattisgarh are likely to be affected by
rainfall deficit.
As part of the exercise, the planned
shutdown of thermal power units has been
postponed and the government has
decided to optimally utilize gas and
liquid-fuelled pro-jects, divert gas from
the western region to the northern region
and expedite revival of projects currently
under reserve shutdown. Even planned
shutdown of ONGCs Mumbai offshore
gas platform during July, which may
impact 3 power projects totalling 1,912
MW, is being explored to be rescheduled.
The government is seized of the
situation. With the rainfall improving,
there shouldnt be any problem, said a
senior government official.
In its second-stage monsoon forecast in
June,
the
India
Meteorological
Department predicted that monthly rainfall over the country as a whole is likely to
be 92% of its average during July and 90%
of its average during August, both with a
model error of 9%. This amount of
rainfall will qualify as below-normal. But
better-than-expected rainfall in June led
to improvement in reservoir levels.
Of Indias installed power generation
capacity of 272,503MW, hydropower
projects account for 41,632.43MW. The
northern states, with a power generation
capacity of 71,383.40MW, had a peak
shortage of 4.5% in May. In the northern
region, 5 thermal projects with a
combined 1,555 MW capacity have
deferred maintenance activity.
Also, if required, another 530 MW can be
shifted to the post-monsoon period. In
addition, the power flow from the western
region to the northern region through
765 kV D/C Gwalior-Agra line has been
approved - resulting in an additional
supply of 300 MW from the current levels

of 1,250 MW. On 11 August 2014 around

30,000 MW of capacity was lying idle
because of breakdowns and maintenance
work on power plants.
LiveMint; July 8, 2015 (Edited)
Power generation: More is not merrier

Power cos are still reeling under

subdued demand and regulatory
hurdles.
SHREYA JAI
New Delhi: The major issues which
plague the Indian power sector are fuel
availability, regulatory hurdles, demandsupply
mismatch,
financing and legal
tussles. While the
UPA
government
pushed for mega power
projects, the NDA
government has taken
steps to facilitate fuel
supply to them. This
has shown quick results with power generation increasing by 5.5% in May 2015.
The 12th Plan period (2012-2017) has
been a record-breaking year with thermal
capacity touching 20,830 MW in 2014-15
- which is the highest capacity addition
ever in the history of Indian power sector.
During the first 3 years of the 12th Plan
period, the private sector contributed 63%
to the total thermal power capacity
addition of 57,719 MW. Most of it is
owing to CILs increase in production,
international coal prices coming down,
ass-ured future supply with coal block reauctions and clarity on gas supply
mechanism.
Compared to last year, the share of longterm purchases has risen to 90.5% in
FY15 from 89% in FY14. The sector is
confident of a long-term growth
trajectory. Its the short-term purchase of
power, which is under pressure, said
Rajesh K. Mediratta, director (business
develop-ment), India Energy Exchange.
According to latest data, in 2014-15, 3.1
BU of electricity were lost on power
trading platforms. This is where all the
big talk about massive capacity addition
fails. Subdued demand from financially
3

ICRA in its latest report on the power

sector said the power generators would
continue to reel under domestic coal
deficit. This would lead to dependence on
costlier imports, leading to underrecovery in energy charge. CERC also is
yet to issue any final order for rate compensation request for impact due to Rupee
depre-ciation, said ICRA. Meanwhile
with cooling of inter-national coal prices
last year, Tata Powers consolidated
operating profit for the fourth quarter
2014-15 was 28% higher at 1,408 crore
against 1,097 crore.
The 13th Plan period pipeline for thermal
power projects is empty, with none of the
major infrastructure firms investing in
new projects. With the other parts of the
supply chain beleaguered, the excitement
around power generation is short lived,
warn power sector executives. The
demand for power from states is subdued
and distribution companies are still
awaiting turnaround with 2 lakh crore
of losses mounting annually. Fuel
availability and generation numbers do
not portray the right picture and
turnaround in the power sector is still
some way off. In a leaking bucket,
whatever goes in doesnt matter, it still
doesnt hold up. The political will to
reform distribution sector is still missing
across states, said Mahapatra.
Business Standard; July 9, 2015
(Edited)

sick power distribution companies are

hurting supply.
Focus on long-pending issues of fuel
availability and supply logistics might be
yielding immediate results. But, on power
distribution side, major intervention has
not
commenced.
The
financial
restructuring plan (FRP) for improving
the health of state distribution utilities has
not taken off and cost recovery remains an
issue. Regulatory assets compound the
problem and private participation has
been minimal, said Sambitosh Mahapatra,
Partner - power and utilities, PwC.
There are also projects totalling 20,000
MW under liti-gation of which cost pass
through is the most contested issue.
Noted power companies continue to reel
under regulatory issues, including stateowned NTPC. The thermal power giant
saw its net profit declining to 10,291
crore during 2014-15 from 10,975 crore
in past year. The company has on several
instances mentioned that the stringent
tariff regulations are hurting its profits.
The provisions of Tariff Regulations for
the period 2014-2019 by CERC led to
reduction in power sale tariff which
NTPC has contested in court. The other
legal hurdle hurting growth of power
generators is compensatory tariff or pass
thorough of increased cost of fuel on the
power price. The 2-year old case of Adani
Power and Tata Powers UMPP - both in
Mundra and running on imported coal is
back to square one with Appellate
Tribunal of Electricity investigating the
matter again. IPPs based on imported coal
still dont have any cushion in their PPAs
for fluctuating exchange rate and coal
prices in the global market as there is no
steady regulation on the same.
Adani Power which mostly sources
imported coal wit-nessed its consolidated
net loss for 2014-15 increasing to 816
crore against 290 crore in 2013-14. It is
the largest private power producer in the
country with 10,440 MW of installed
capacity. The company in its last
statement said a lot is riding on the
availability of domestic coal and
regulatory clearances.

Now & then: Plug Into power reforms

JAIDEEP MISHRA
Of the several issues current today, the
power sector seems the least problematic.
Output is rather buoyant, pan-India: the
power ministry website mentions, in block
letters, not just the highest-ever increase
in generation capacity, but also that for
transmission lines, and ditto for
substations installed. And the Narendra
Modi govern-ment promises `power for
all' in the foreseeable future.
Yet, the fact is that SEBs, which distribute
the bulk of power nationally, are
horrendously in the red, with cumu-lative
losses put at well over 2,00,000 crore
4

(up-to-date figures are apparently

unavailable). And unless the cripp-ling
finances of the utilities improve, the
Centre's bright plans like `Make in India'
and `Digital India' would dim. The entire
economy would be adversely affected if we
tamely plod along with power utilities
terribly in the red. Already, the experts
opine that the smart reduction lately in
fuel shortages in power plants is more
because state utilities are too broke to
step-up power.
Since the 1990s, most states have hived off
their SEBs into separate units for power
generation, transmission and distribution.
There have been some reform initiatives,
with select states seemingly reducing
huge losses in power distribution. The
Centre pitched in as well, offering
incentives to restructure dues and
securitise out-standings. The Electricity
Act (EA), 2003, was seen as path
breaking. Things seemed hunky-dory, for
a while. There's certainly been huge
capacity addition in the past decade,
particularly by power producers. Yet,
there's been a sorry relapse. Revenue
losses in power distribution have now
risen by leaps and bounds. Reportedly, all
state distri-bution utilities are now
severely affected. The situation has gotten
bad to worse, thanks to reckless populism
and giveaways in the form of unbudgeted
power subsidies (read, nil or virtually nil
tariffs) and plain theft.
Now, power is in the concurrent list of the
Constitution, with both the Union and the
states having a say. However, central
rules, norms and laws must prevail and
the Centre needs to be much more focused
than hitherto on purposefully reforming
moribund finances of state power utilities,
and sooner rather than later. A strong
political initiative is surely warranted.
State power utilities need to levy
reasonable tariffs and generate adequate
returns for plough-back and improved
infra-structure. The law does mandate
independent tariff-setting, but there have
been instances galore when state
regulators have simply preferred not to
revise tariffs year after year, no doubt to

go out of their way to please the powers

that be.
But we just cannot carry on with such a
state of affairs. We need transparency in
power, one of the most capital-intensive
sectors. The EA, 2003, does require
`proper accounting and audit in the
generation, transmission and distribution
or trading of electricity,' as per Section
55(2). Note also that as per Section 74,
power utilities are required to furnish to
the central regulator `statistics, returns or
other information relating to generation,
transmission, distribution, trading and use
of electricity as it may require and at such
times and in such form and manner as
may be specified'.
The Centre needs to invoke the provision
to make it com-pulsory for utilities to duly
publish quarterly accounts. There is also a
sound case for a suitable price index for
the power sector, so that state regulators
do not gloss over tariff revision. Instead,
the estimated power infla-tion less an
annual
efficiency-improvement
requirement needs to be duly factored into
tariffs. Concurrently, given widespread
energy poverty, states need to envisage
limi-ted subventions, which would need to
be budgeted and provided for, to
encourage minimal power consumption
levels. The point is to clean up balancesheets of power utilities going forward,
and drive home the political mess-age that
sound utility finances are for the greater
good.
Abroad, in mature markets, utilities are a
stable asset class and given our lowly percapita power consumption levels and huge
upside potential, improved state power
finances can also provide pensions for all,
sustainably. Hence the pressing need for
multiyear reform of state utilities, so that
they are in a better position to innovate
and step-up power. Rooftop solar power
and solar-powered pump sets are slated to
be increasingly cost-effective going
forward and with sound balance-sheets,
power utilities would be better able to
leverage techno-logical changes to boost
supply. There is scope to rev up efficiency

improvement; key in attractive bottom

lines.
The Economic Times; July 8, 2015
(Edited)
CEA reorganisation begins
SHREYA JAI
New Delhi: CEA announced its
reorganisation in an office order on June
30 for "creation of new divisions and
restructuring of the existing formation".
The authority is statutory body under the
ministry of power and was constituted by
the Electricity Act. It has 15 major functions specified in the Act ranging from
data collection to setting of standards. It
also investigates any major mishap,
including grid failure. The CEA will now
shift focus to renewable energy, T&D, and
new policies.
The new divisions introduced in the office
of the chair-person are co-ordination of
internal and external affairs, IT and HRD.
The new tasks assigned to the planning
wing are integrated resource planning,
fuel
management,
power
data
management, power survey and load forecasting, renewable energy development,
thermal project planning and R&D. The
existing wings - thermal, hydro, power
systems, grid operation and distribution,
and economic and commercial, have been
expanded. Chief engineers have been
given extra charge of power data
management, power survey and load
forecasting, UMPPs, hydro project
appraisal, and thermal projects planning
and development. CEA officials said the
reorganisation preceded a road map for
the govern-ment's '24X7 power for all'
initiative and the 19th Electric Power
Survey to forecast electricity demand.
The authority is grappling with a staff
crunch and lack of talent and technical
expertise. A committee headed by Railway
Minister Suresh Prabhu had in a report
high-lighted the problems of CEA and
suggested remedial measures. The
officials said some junior posts such as
deputy director had been abolished and
member-level staff had been given
additional tasks. "This has been done to
prevent any financial burden. It has also

brought relief to those waiting for

promotion," an official said. The CEA
promoted 46 subordinate engineers to
chief engineers last December. The
member (planning) holds additional
charge as chairperson.
Business Standard; July 5, 2015
(Edited)
Power capacity touches 16,000 MW
in Chhattisgarh
Raipur: In FY 2014-15, the power
production capacity in the state touched
16,000 MW with the contribution of both
public and private sector power plants,
Chha-ttisgarh
Energy
Department
principal secretary Aman Kumar Singh
said.
The Economic Times; July 7, 2015
(Edited)

The Financial Express; July 8, 2015

Thermal power generation
dips marginally in June
OUR BUREAU
New Delhi: Thermal power generation
fell marginally in June despite continued
momentum in CILs production. During
the month, thermal power plants in the
country generated about 0.4% less power
at 72,804.74 MU as against 73,134.59 MU
in the same month last year, according to
CEA data. The units were operating at an
average PLF of 59.43% as against 66.31%
in the same month last year. The overall
power generation in the country, at
88,542.35 MU, was almost the same as in
June last year (88,265.17 MU).
Specifically, generation by coal-based
power plants remained flat at around
6

should wait for longer, he said. Out of 16

proposed UMPPs, only 2 have actually
taken off. Recently, Reliance Power
walked out of a proposed project at
Tilaiya in Jharkhand citing delays related
to land acquisition. Another reason cited
is that states are looking to meet some
additional demand from alternative
sources such as solar. This is some kind
of an artificial comfort, said an industry
official.
The Hindustan Times, July 7, 2015
(Edited)

66,209.48 MU in June 2015. While power

generation from coal-fired power plants
remained flat, availability of the fuel
increased sharply. During the month, CIL
produced 12.4% more coal as compared to
last year at 38.83 MT. Increased coal
production meant only 13 of the 100 coalbased power plants had less than 7 days of
coal stocks. All these are non-pithead
power plants.
The Hindu Business Line; July 7, 2015
(Edited)
States unwilling to sign agreements
with coal-based power plants
AMAN MALIK
New Delhi: Even as the government is
reviving stranded gas-based power plants,
significant coal-based capacity is idling
simply because states are unwilling to
sign long-term PPAs. Data available as of
end
of
March
show that
coal-based
power
capacity to
the tune of
about
15,000 MW is lying unused. In addition
to this, no PPAs have yet been signed for
plants, which will come on stream by
2017, with capacity of around 5,000 MW.
Reluct-ance of debt-laden state dis-coms
seems to be the main reason for low offtake. Industry officials say that UP was
the last state to sign a PPA in 2014.
Rajasthan, which had signed a PPA in
2013, is now looking to scrap a part of
that. AP, Telangana and Kerala are
looking to purchase more power, but have
not actually signed any agreements.
Some of the things are in a regulatory
haze, people dont want to take a decision
at this point of time, said Dipesh Dipu,
energy expert at Jenissi Management
Consultant. He adds that a lack of clarity
on the fate of UMPPs has further held
states back from signing PPAs.
Telangana and AP dont know if they
should consider the Krishna-patnam
UMPP gone and terminated or if they

Demand for power projects could

revive
in 2017: Ravi Arya, Hindustan Power
SUMIT JHA
Hindustan Power Projects Pvt Ltd
(HPPPL), formerly Moser Baer Projects,
forayed into coal-based thermal power
projects over 3 years ago, on the back of a
MoU with the MP government to develop
2,520 MW capacity. It commissioned the
first 1,200 MW plant in Annupur, MP,
recently. HPPPLs Ravi Arya, presidentthermal, discusses the power sector
scenario in India, with all its problems and
promise. Excerpts:
Could you find buyers for the power you
produce?
Our project was based on a MoU with the
host state, which requires us to sell 35% of
all commissioned capa-city to it. So far,
that translated into 420 MW. We sell
nearly 60 MW of this at a constant cost
comprising only energy charge as per the
agreement, while the rest of the capacity
has been contracted at tariff determined
by the state regulator. We also managed
to tie up 361 MW with the UP
government in 2012 but have not been
able to start supply due to congestion in
the west-north trans-mission corridor. In
June, we have qualified to be a power
supplier to AP for a contracted capacity of
374 MW, which leaves us with only 45
MW to spare.
What problems do you face in supplying power
to UP?
The 400KV transmission line between
Gwalior (western region) and Jaipur
7

tion, perfectly syncing with completion of

new units.
Is securing coal supply easier than finding
power buyers?
Over the last year some long standing
issues in coal supply seems to be clearing
up. It needs a lot more work still. As far as
PPAs go, the industry has suffered a
drought in the last 2 years but there are
signs of it changing. The recently
announced PPAs for AP was much needed
and UP may also announce fresh bidding
for the remaining capacity it originally
wanted to buy. This would mean that by
the end of this year there could be 3,800
MW of contracts to buy power up for
grabs.
Does that mean demand is back in the sector?
Power is perhaps the most cyclical
element of the infra-structure sector and
although these PPAs bring much respite,
the real demand has still not been created.
In my view, action is likely to return by
2017. The reason for this is that no
investment is being made in capacity
addition, as the industry focuses on
revival of stuck or non-viable projects.
However, as the economy grows and
demand inches up, these projects, which
are under construction or just being
commissioned, would be better placed to
take advantage of it.
Do you see uncertainty reversing anytime
soon?
While demand is sure to return sooner
than later, uncer-tainty of the business
may not only linger but could get even
worse. The coal transportation problem is
likely to get worse with time. We do not
have enough railway lines to supply coal
to plant locations and although work has
started on those lines, it is unlikely to be
fast enough. Land acquisition problems
could hamper infrastructure building,
leading to a spike in the cost of coal
supply over long distances. Our plants are
coal pithead plants that places us only 260
km away from the coal source. The flip
side of being close to coal source is that
we are some distance away from load
centres. Congestion in trans-mission has
been bothering us. But power sector eco-

(northern region) that was supposed to

have been ready by March 2014 got stuck
because of lack of right of way as the line
passes through areas with wildlife. The
issue was taken to the National Green
Tri-bunal. The delay seems to be over.
We hope to have the corridor available by
the end of August. Although the PPA was
for supplying power from October 2016,
we could start earlier as the UP
government agrees to it. The nonavailability of line has disrupted supply of
power from the surplus western region to
the starved northern region.
Lack of PPAs has been a constant complaint
from the power developers, but discoms blame
high tariff for not buying power. What is the
nature of your PPA with UP?
Originally, UP had invited bids for 6,000
MW in 2012 but could only close the deal
for 2,175 MW in the next 2 years. Our
pact is at a levelised tariff (over 25 years)
of 5.74/unit. Even though the tariff
seems high, at the bus bar the state will
only pay 4/unit in the first year. The
tariff for the subsequent years will be
determined by the escalation formula that
takes coal prices and wholesale price
inflation into account. So the levellised
tariff is not the actual tariff but just a
mathematical model developed for
comparison among bidders. For instance,
coal esca-lation has been a constant in the
last 2 years. Hence the tariff for next 2
years would not be substantially different
from the first year. Its a complicated
metric and a cause for confusion even
among veterans in the sector.
When would work start on your next two 660
MW units?
The preliminary work has been
completed. But for a project that has a
debt-equity mix of 75:25, we would need
the lenders approval. The lenders will
fund us only if we have secured fuel
supply for the next phase. We have been
holding back on the recently held coal
block auction as we didnt need mines that
were near production. We would bid for
mines in the next phase, as those mines
would take nearly 3 years to start produc8

suffered
from
deficiencies.
The
consultants report was merely to assist
the Board in evaluating the bids. It was
not binding. The Board can independently
take action based on the consultants
report, which clearly said that both bids
suffered from deficiencies, the government
argued. As for the other ground that the
delay was causing cost overrun, the
government said it as misconceived. All
that the judge could examine was the
competence of the Board to scrap the
tender and call for a fresh one. There was
no finding whatsoever in the impugned
order that the Board was incompetent or
was barred by law from doing so, the
government stated.
The judge failed to note the extraordinary
defects found in the Indo-Chinese
Consortiums bid. The petitioner had
submitted an incomplete price bid, which
rendered it completely impossible to
award the contract, the govern-ment
clarified. Based on the grounds, the
government asked the High Court to set
aside the single judges order.
The Hindu; July 8, 2015 (Edited)

nomics says reliance on transmission is far

less risky than relying on coal supply over
long distances. Transmission lines once
built would last through the plant
lifetime, but coal supply with constrained
transportation could be more complex and
costly.
The Financial Express; July 8, 2015
(Edited)
State government moves HC against
stay
on Udangudi project tender

Says validity of project expired on

March 31 and bids of Indo-Chinese
consortium and BHEL lapsed
DENNIS S. JESUDASAN
Chennai: The State government has filed
an appeal in the Madras High Court
against the interim stay order on the
tender proceedings for the 2x660 MW
Udangudi power project, contending that
the single judge had no juris-diction to
step into the shoes of the TANGEDCO
Board and decide if administrative and
policy decisions made to scrap the tender
accorded with his own views. In a writ
appeal, the government said the validity of
the project had expired on March 31,
2015 itself. Therefore, the bids of both the
Indo-Chinese Consortium (petitioner) and
BHEL had lapsed and become invalid as
per Rule 26(3) of the TN Tender
Transparency Rules, 2000. A mere invitation to offer can never, under any
circumstances, be construed as an
assurance that the offer (the bid) made by
the tenderer would be accepted,
regardless of its flaws.
It would be unprecedented for courts to
direct the TANGEDCO Board to enter
into a contract on the strength of the bid,
and a defective bid at that. Bids submitted
by prospective contractors were merely
offers, which may or may not be accepted
by the authority. Until offers are accepted,
no obligation arises to bind either party.
One of the main grounds for the judge to
stay the tender process was that the
consultant hired by the Board had not
recommended the rejection of the bids,
but only observed that both the bids

NTPC to finalise price bids

for Pudimadaka plant
SANTOSH PATNAIK
Pudimadaka (Visakhapatnam District):
NTPC, will shortly finalise price bids on
turnkey basis for steam and turbine
generators for the 4,000 MW UMPP
being set up about 60 km from
Visakhapatnam. The authorities have
already opened the technical bids and an
exercise is on to finalise the price bids for
the turnkey package. NTPC has already
paid the amount and acquired 700 acres
for the project. Process is on to pay 400
crore more by this month end to take
possession of the remaining 500 acres
from the AP Industrial Infrastructure
Corporation.
NTPC-Pudimadaka
project
Group
General Manager P.S. Radhakrishnan said
that they had completed EIA study by
Vimta Labs of Hyderabad. All other
critical studies, inclu-ding bathymetric
study, are at various stages of comple9

tion. Packages are being finalised on

turnkey basis for Turbo Generator Island,
Steam Generator Island, coal, ash and
water systems. The plant, which will have
4x 1,000 MW units will involve an
investment of 20,000 crore to 24,000
crore. Radhakrishnan said that they would
ensure 100% ash utilisation by installing
super critical technologies. The plant will
have a 275 metre-high chimney with
direct sea-water cooling facility. Accordingly, the boilers will be designed. Coal
will be sourced 100% from abroad. It will
need 7 lakh cubic metres per hour. IITMadras has been engaged to conduct the
relevant study. Though NTPC had set a
timeline of 52 months for the project,
efforts would be made to commission the
plant in 42 months, Radhakrishnan said.
The Hindu; July 8, 2015 (Edited)

Hyderabad: The boiler light-up of unit I

of the Singareni Thermal Power Station
at Jaipur, Adilabad was successfully
completed, C&MD N. Sridhar, said. He
informed that unit II will have its boiler
light-up
in
August
this
year.
Synchronisation is scheduled for unit I in
November and for unit II in March, 2016.
The Hindu; July 5, 2015 (Edited)
Allow UMPP bid winners
to mortgage land, coal blocks

Panel also suggested that developers

be allowed to pass on fuel cost to
consumers
SARITA SINGH
New Delhi: Companies winning bids for
UMPPs will be allowed to mortgage land
and coal blocks attached to them if the
government accepts recommendations of
an expert panel. The panel, tasked to
review the standard bid documents for
4,000 MW and above projects, has also
proposed that developers be allowed to
pass on the fuel cost to consumers. The
power ministry had consti-tuted the panel
under former central vigilance commissioner Pratyush Sinha after all the
qualified private deve-lopers withdrew
from the final round of bidding for 2
proposed UMPPs in TN and Odisha,
citing difficulty in securing bank finance
due to flaws in the bidding norms.
It has recommended to the power
ministry to invite fuel cost from bidders
for the first year while from the second
year onwards, it will increase as per a
CERC formula, a government official
said. The fixed cost will be quoted for 25
years, he added. The official said the
panel has acceded to most demands of
private
companies,
inclu-ding
reintroduction of the design-build-operate
model for bidding of such projects in place
of the existing design-build-operatetransfer model, which has been opposed
by private developers. The panel has also
recommended creating 2 special purpose
vehicles (SPV) for each proposed UMPP.
While one SPV will own land and captive
coal blocks, the other will own the rest of
the infrastructure. The panel has also

Neyveli Power Station-II completes

operation
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Neyveli: The 2x250 MW Unit-I of
Neyveli Thermal Power Station-II
expansion has completed its continuous
opera-tion for 72 hours and qualified for
Commercial Operation (COD). With this,
the power generating capacity of NLC has
expanded from 3,490 MW to 3,740 MW.
NLC is setting up a 2x250 MW Thermal
Power Station at Neyveli as part of its
Thermal Power Station-II Expansion.
Recently, Unit-I (500 MW) of NTPL
Thermal Power Sta-tion, implemented
through a JV Company, NLC Tamil Nadu
Power Limited (NTPL) incorporated by
NLC (89%) and TANGEDCO (11%) had
attained COD on June 6.Unit-II of this
Thermal Power Station had COD
Declaration
on
April
21.
Precommissioning activities in Unit-II are
near-ing completion. This unit would also
be ready for commercial operation this
month.
The Hindu; July 5, 2015 (Edited)
SCCL boiler light-up
completed
STAFF REPORTER

for

unit

10

suggested allowing the developers to pass

through the cost incurred on R&R
(resettlement and rehabilitation).
The government had to scrap bidding for
the two 4,000 MW UMPPs - in Cheyyur
in TN and Bedhabahal in Odisha - after
qualified private developers such as Tata
Power, Adani Power, Jindal Power, CLP
India, GMR Energy and Sterlite Energy
withdrew from the final round of auction.
In its report given 10 days ago, the panel
has also proposed restricting the role of
the independent engi-neer, who was given
the power to interfere in the earlier bid
documents. An executive with PFC said
fresh bidding for the 2 UMPPs is
expected to start in the next 3 months as
the government has begun final
deliberations on the bidding documents.
The Economic Times; July 6, 2015
(Edited)

with net metering facility. At present,

NTPC-Simhadri generates power at 82%
PLF.
The Hindu Business Line; July 7, 2015
(Edited)
GVK Power's Goindwal project cost
shoots up to Rs 4,573 cr
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi: GVK Power in a BSE filing
said the cost of its 540 MW Goindwal
Sahib thermal power project in Punjabs
Tarn Taran district is now estimated at
4,573 crore, sharply higher than the
earlier estimate of 3,200 crore. The cost
escalation means a higher debt load for
the company. GVK Power (Goindwal
Sahib) had com-pleted the financial tie-up
and arranged 2,400 crore as loan for the
power project in the beginning of 2010.
Then, the total cost of the project was
estimated at 3,200 crore, of which
800 crore was equity and the rest debt.
IDBI Bank had syndicated the debt, apart
from being one of the lenders in the
consortium of bankers.
Financial Chronicle; July 3, 2015
(Edited)

NTPC-Simhadri to add 1,600 MW

capacity
Ch R.S. SARMA
Visakhapatnam:
The NTPC-Simhadri
thermal power unit at Parawada in
Visakhapatnam district plans to expand
its capacity from 2,000 MW to 3,600
MW. According to AK Samanta, GM,
there are plans to add 2 more units of 800
MW each. We have adequate support
from the authori-ties. We wish to acquire
land in the adjoining area, he said. The
company would need 800 acres for the
project which will involve an investment
of 5-6 crore per megawatt. It will be
developed with ultra super critical
technology with higher efficiency and less
coal
consum-ption
and
emissions
compared to existing technologies
followed at various power plants.
He said NTPC is also in talks with the
Visakhapatnam steel plant, for a JV to set
up a 2x250 MW power plant on the land
belonging to the latter in the city at
Ukkunagaram. Samanta said NTPCSimhadri has also decided to set up 20
MW solar energy power plant within the
compound. Under CSR, the company had
already distributed 48 solar pump sets to
social welfare and other residential hostels

Why not sell coal from

2 Chhattisgarh mines to JPL
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi: Delhi High Court suggested
to CIL to sell to Jindal Power Ltd (JPL)
the coal it has started to mine from 2
Chhattisgarh mines if it did not have the
space to store the mineral. A bench of
justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev
Sachdeva gave the suggestion after CIL
moved an application seeking permission
to sell the coal it started to mine from
Gare Palma IV/2 and IV/3 mines after
recei-ving environmental clearance. It
moved the application as the high court
on May 27 had kept in abeyance a CIL
letter cancelling e-auction in which JPL
had won 49,000 metric tonnes of coal to
be mined from the 2 mines.
CIL put before the bench 3 options selling the coal by way of a fresh eauction, selling it to those companies with
11

any power plants having shortage, Goyal

said.
CIL normally sells around 10% of its
output through e-auction at prices which
are at a steep premium over linkage
prices. Higher e-auction volumes always
go to boost the miners bottom line.
During early days of 2015, e-auction
prices were reportedly 65% over notified
or linkage prices. For those having PPAs,
bidding would start at CIL price plus 20%
as floor price. Those who dont have PPAs
or only have short-term agreement,
bidding would start at CIL price plus 40%
premium. Both of these would be
transparent processes through which
everybody who doesnt have coal would
have equal opportunity, the minister said.
This would however be a temporary
solution till April by when the
government is expected to come out with
a framework which would be a permanent
solution. The stalled initiative to set up
large sized power plants would soon get a
boost with the Pratyush Sinha committee
recently submitting its report on bid
documents
for
UMPPs.
Final
consultation and final deliberation is
going on and would be finalised very soon
after which we would restart the process
of bidding for UMPPs, Goyal said.
DNA; July 4, 2015 (Edited)

whom the public sector unit has a fuel

supply agreement or sale to NTPC - and
asked the court which method it should go
for. The counsel for CIL told the court
that the problem was that after it had
received environ-mental clearance, it had
commenced mining. Now the mineral was
accumulating at the site with no space to
store it. It also sought clarity on whether
the courts May 27 order would prohibit it
from selling the coal it was mining. The
court, however, only suggested that CIL
can sell the coal it was mining to JPL or
hold a fresh e-auction in which the power
company can participate and did not pass
any order. It listed the matter for further
hearing on July 7. CILs application was
filed in the main petition of JPL which has
challenged a May 16 letter by which the
PSU claimed the e-auction was cancelled.
The Pioneer; July 2, 2015 (Edited)
Coal-starved
breather

plants

get

e-auction

For bidding by power plants with

PPAs, it would be CIL price plus 20%,
with no PPAs it would be plus 40%
SUMIT MOITRA
Kolkata: Profits of CIL are set to get a
boost with the government deciding to
raise e-auction quantity by crea-ting
separate windows for stressed power
companies without coal blocks or
linkages. There are many power plants
which are stressed and are starved of coal.
For those who dont have linkage we are
forming 2 e-auction windows, one for
those who have PPAs and another for
those without PPAs, minister Piyush
Goyal said.
Initially in both windows we would start
with 5 MT each, and then expand it,
looking at the response we get from the
first exercise, the minister said. This 10
MT could be over and above the normal
e-auction volume as CIL is now producing
enough coal. We have now surplus
power. Where there are transmission
capabilities, we would provide as much
coal as needed. Enough coal is available
with power plants. So there is no risk of

Aggressive coal bidding may hurt

projects totaling 6,000 MW, says Icra
RACHITA PRASAD
Mumbai: Power sector now stares at
higher risk of signi-ficant under-recovery
and concerns on viability of pro-jects after
the companies bid for coal aggressively,
Icra said. The rating agency said in a
report that the recent bid for coal blocks
that were earlier de-allocated saw negative price bids ranging from 300-1,100
a tonne by winners, which `could translate
into under-recovery. 1.20 per unit of 40
paise for projects totaling 6,000 MW,
creating concerns over viability. Icra said
that the sector's credit profile continues to
be weighed by issues such as falling
thermal PLF, increasing coal import
dependence and domestic gas deficit that
12

may continue in FY15, uncertainty on

implementation of tariff compensation,
significant cost over-run in projects,
aggressive bidding seen in auction of coal
blocks and rising subsidy and weak cost
coverage ratio for discoms.
The report said that almost 35,000 MW
of projects have seen cost overrun of 35%
due to delays in land acqui-sition, lack of
fuel and other problems. On the positive,
we do see some movement. A lot of
generation capacity has come up stream
and we expect some more to start
generation. We are seeing some
improvement in coal availability although
the coal auction is yet to give results.
CILs incremental output going ahead
would be better than past and there has
been softening of international coal
prices, said Sabyasachi Majumdar, senior
VP and co-head corporate sector ratings
at Icra.
But we still see a lot of concerns on the
distribution side as many discoms in some
of the more challenged states remain in
precarious condition which impacts their
ability to buy power, Majumdar said.
The subsidy scheme to encourage the
utilization of stranded gas based projects
allowing R-LNG to initiate interim
measure, and however, its viability is
dependent upon prevailing R-LNG price
exchange rate and availability of
moratorium period on debt servicing,
Icra said. The report noted that there was
a sharp decline in thermal PLF from 75%
in FY 2011 to 65% in FY 2015.
The Economic Times; July 8, 2015
(Edited)

definition more stringent than the

present one, which has been taken from
the foreign direct investment (FDI)
policy. This person said that the
government is looking at defining a group
company on the basis of ownership and
control.
This internal discussion comes following
rejection by the government of bids for 4
blocks for which Jindal Steel and Power
Ltd (JSPL) and Bharat Aluminium Co
(Balco) had emerged as the successful
bidders. Following this, both companies
had moved the Delhi high court
challenging the rejection of their bids.
The court later said it had found no
evidence of collusion in at least 3 of the 4
cases. To be sure, this is as yet a matter of
debate within the government and no
final call has been taken. There are a
number of aspects you continue to discuss,
some of them fructify, some dont,
another person aware of the discussions
said.
According to a press note on FDI, 2 or
more entities are considered group
companies if they can, directly or
indirectly, exercise 26% or more of voting
rights in each other, or if they can appoint
more than half the directors on each
others boards. Already, the government
has said that multiple bids from one
company for a particular block will be
treated as one bid. For the purposes of
auction, the government already defines
an associate company on the basis of
control of at least 20% of share
The Hindustan Times, July 5, 2015
(Edited)

Group company rules for

coal auctions to be tightened
AMAN MALIK
New Delhi: With the intent to try and
prevent any chance of cartelisation or
collusion among bidders during the
forthcoming round of captive coal block
auctions in August, the government is
mulling tightening the definition of what
constitutes a group company. A person
aware of the matter said that the
government is contem-plating making the

'Orissa Government scuttled

coal block project'
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
Thiruvananthapuram: The Baitarani coal
block project had failed to take off as
Orissa had shown scant interest in cooperating with Kerala, Power Minister
Aryadan Mohammed told the Assembly.
The New Indian Express; July 8, 2015
Coal India goes on a production
overdrive
13

Consider this: Coal Indias output from

2010-11 to 2013-14 grew from 431 MT to
462 MT, adding only 31 MT in the last 4
years. On the other hand, CIL output in
2014-15 reached 494 MT, recording a
growth of 33 MT in a single year. Coal
India has begun 2015-16 on a strong note
registering a 12% growth output at
121.33 MT in the first quarter and
meeting 99% of the target. Small wonder
the Union Coal Minister Piyush Goyal is
ecstatic. It is the same Coal India, the
same executives and the same workmen.
We have just ensured better management
of operational affairs, showed the right
intention and always believed in our
potential, Goyal said.
The fact that coal ministry is keeping
close tabs on the daily operational details
of CIL, was evident when Goyal speaking
on the subject on July 3 in Kolkata,
checked the message on his phone to tell
the audience that CIL loaded 206 rakes on
July 2. I get daily updates on my phone,
he noted. On the ground, CIL officials say,
minor operational bottlenecks in terms of
labour, law and order issues, have eased in
the past 1 year because of better
coordination with state governments and
local administration in major mining
states.
On its turnaround strategy, Swarup said
he and CIL C&MD Sutirtha Bhattacharya
have divided the job between them. I
have told him to take care of digging in
the mines and I am there to coordinate
with state governments and negotiate
with them if there are any issues. And
almost every week, I meet chief
secretaries of some mining state or the
other, he said. Also, according to him, the
recent auctioning of coal blocks, which
were de-allocated by the Supreme Court,
has indirectly helped in a way. As the
entire proceeds of coal block auctions
would go to respective states where the
blocks are situated. It has brought the
states and the Centre closer, easing
operational bottlenecks for CIL in mining
states.
But better management of affairs and
coordination of states in operational

to fuel economy
PROBAL BASAK
Kolkata: Recover the coal sector for me,
the entire economy will rebound. This
was PM Narendra Modis first message to
Union Coal Secretary Anil Swarup last
October after appointing him as an OSD
in
the
ministry.
Recalling
the
conversation, Swarup now believes, with
the successful auctioning of coal blocks to
captive miners and state-owned CIL
recording
double-digit
production
growth, he and the CIL management are
on course to deliver on the PMs mission.

Core sector data for the month of May

shows the coal sector was one of the best
performing sectors, with 7.8% growth on
a year-on-year (Y-o-Y) basis. The growth
engine for the sector is CIL, which
accounts for Indias 80% coal output.
CILs production data shows that its
production is growing for quite some time
(see chart) and since April, it has been
recording
double-digit
production
growth. In the month of May 2015, CIL
produced 40.97 MT, registering a growth
of 11.8% and in June, it registered 12%
growth output.
Although the Modi governments
ambitious target for CIL to achieve the 1
BT production target by 2019-20 might
be a long way off, both the coal ministry
and CIL mana-gement say the company is
on the right track. While operational
success has contributed to recent growth,
CIL is banking on easing of land
acquisition and environ-mental hurdles to
meet the target in the long term.
14

matters will not help CIL to fulfil the

dream of producing I BT by 2019. 1 BT
is not a target enforced from the top.
Rather, its a bottom-to-top calculation.
We asked all subsidiaries what they could
produce by 2019-20. We have chalked out
a plan for 925 MT by 2019-20. I think, we
can reach 1 billion, too, Swarup said. The
man to deliver on the promise is
Bhattacharya. The key issues that the
coal miner is basically relying on, are
timely completion of 3 critical railway
lines, land acquisition and green
clearances, Bhattacharya said. There has
been significant progress as CIL has
already acquired 2,000 hectares and
received 41 environmental and forest
clearances in the past 8 months. It has
chalked out mine-wise plans to meet the
925 MT production target by 2019-20.
Chhattisgarh-based
South
Eastern
Coalfields and Odisha-based Mahanadi
Coalfields will account for half the
targeted output. Both subsidiaries have
received green clearances for 5 blocks
each in 2014-15 and many more are
expecting clearances this year. There are
technolo-gical challenges, especially for
underground mines. CIL is banking on a
public-private
partnership
model.
Engaging private contractors for mining
is already operational in CIL under a
Mine Developers and Operators (MDOs)
model but CIL is now looking to expand
this. Awarding contracts to operators in
the past few years under MDO model
were on piecemeal, not on turnkey basis.
Here, the miner would be handed over the
mines for a much longer period and it
would be awarded on a turnkey basis from production to transport till the
loading point, an official explained. And
even if the target is achieved, coal
evacuation would be a major issue for
CIL. The govern-ment is working on 3
major new railway lines in Jhar-khand,
Chhattisgarh and Odisha that have the
potential to evacuate 200-300 MT once
ready by July 2018.
Business Standard; July 7, 2015
(Edited)

Huge eastern arms contribution

in CIL 12% growth
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi: CILs Jharkhand-based arm,
Central Coalfields Ltd (CCL), has topped
among 8 subsidiaries by surpassing
output target with production of 12.59
MT in the first 3 months of the current
fiscal. CCL not only achieved 120% of the
10.50 MT target set for April-June
quarter but also registered a record 26.6%
over the corresponding period in the
previous fiscal, CIL said. CCL during the
last fiscal had become the first subsidiary
of CIL to achieve its pro-duction target as
well as growth in raw coal output by
registering unprecedented growth of
11.2% in raw coal output. Its coal
production had stagnated at around 48
MT for 4 consecutive financial years from
2009-10 to 2012-13 due to "acute
shortage" of land but in 2014-15 it
notched 55.64 MT production against 55
MT target on account of various
expansion and other initiatives, as per its
C&MD Gopal Singh.
Another arm Eastern Coalfields Ltd
(ECL) too surpassed the production target
during April-June 2015 and recor-ded an
output of 9.12 MT against 8.998 MT
target. Two other arms - Mahanadi
Coalfields Ltd (MCL) and NCL (Northern
Coalfields Ltd) too registered impressive
shows by achieving 99% production of the
targeted quantity at 31.07 MT and 18.26
MT, respectively during the period. MCL
recorded a 13.3% growth in production
over the same period in previous fiscal,
while NCL output was higher by 18.2%.
South Eastern Coalfields Ltd (SECL) and
Bharat Coking Coal Ltd (BCCL) achieved
95% each of the target recording 31.16
MT and 8.81 MT of production, 13.2%
and 3% growth in output in April-June
period compared with a year ago period.
Western Coalfields Ltd (WCL) achieved
90% of the target by producing 10.26 MT
during the period. However, the worst
performance was shown by North East
Coalfields (NEC) which could achieve
only 27% per cent of the target by
producing 0.07 MT of coal.
15

The share of underground coal mining

in India
has slumped from 16.3% to 8.8% in the
last decade

CIL which accounts for over 80% of the

domestic coal production has 8
subsidiaries - ECL (West Bengal), BCCL
(Jharkhand), CCL (Jharkhand), SECL
(Chhattisgarh), WCL (Maharashtra), NCL
(Madhya Pradesh), MCL (Odisha) and
NEC (North East). The Centre has
announced plans to boost CILs annual
production to the level of 1 BT by 2019 to
meet growing fuel demand. However, the
company has successively missed its
output targets.
The Statesman; July 6, 2015 (Edited)

GAURAV MISHRA
New Delhi: The government is
considering a push for underground
mining to extract deep-seated coal in a bid
to boost coal production, but is facing
challenges of resources and lack of
machinery. Theres a definite thrust
towards it. We are trying to understand
it, coal secretary Anil Swarup said. India
has set itself an ambi-tious target of
increasing coal production from 565.77
MT in 2013-14 to 1.5 BT by 2020 to
reduce dependence on imports. The most
prevalent method of coal mining in India
is opencast or surface mining, used for
extracting coal deposits at shallow depths.
Its a more efficient process than
underground mining, the latter needing
high technical expertise and greater
investments. The share of underground
coal mining in India has slumped from
16.3% to 8.8% in the last decade.
The primary reason is rise in production
from opencast mines, which is increasing
at a greater rate than under-ground
mines. Some potential underground mines
have also been converted to opencast
mines, said S.K. Dubey, technical
secretary at the Central Mine Planning
and Design Institute (CMPDI), the
consulting arm of CIL. The most efficient
way to carry out underground mining is
to extract long panels of coal with use of
massive shearers and a roof support
system through longwall mining. A
typical longwall machine moves along the
coalface cutting coal slices while the roof
is allowed to collapse.
This mining technique hasnt been
successful in India because, Dubey said,
We dont have large areas of continuous
coal deposits underground. This makes
esti-mation and implementation of mining
very difficult. We had very ambitious
projects in the 1970s and 1980s, which
were unsuccessful due to these conditions.
In China or the US, large deposits of coal
seam are available free from geo-mining

CCL to start new projects

for coal mining in Jharkhand
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
Ranchi: We will start mining of coal over
a stretch of 34,000 acres of land in
Jharkhand and land authentication
process is on, said CCLs C&MD Gopal
Singh. Singh (who will take charge as
NMDCs MD next January). He told that
progress of land authentication work was
monitored by Jharkhand CM Raghuvar
Das and Chief Secretary Rajiv Gauba.
We are also holding camps in villages to
authenticcate the land, he said, adding
that the new mining project will begin in
CCL command area of the state, he said.
Besides, the unit will recruit 17,000 people
in the next 2 years, Singh said, claiming
that around 1.70 lakh people in and
around the proposed projects will
indirectly
benefit
following
their
implementation.
The C&MD said 2 of its projects in
Madadh Amrapali, touted to be one of
Asias largest projects, have even featured
in the PMs Pragati portal. CCL has been
emer-ging as the best coal company of the
country, he added. Asked the reason
behind CCLs whopping growth, Singh
said it was because of good co-ordination
among all stakeholders, including
government
agencies,
contact-ors,
employees etc.
The Financial Express; July 5, 2015
(Edited)
Underground coal mining plan hits
hurdles
16

disturbance, which makes longwall

mining feasible.
In India, Singareni Collieries Co Ltd
(SCCL) has the highest share of
underground
mining
production.
According to an SCCL official, the
company has been sourcing machinery
required for longwall mining from
Caterpillar Inc., since last year.
Technology needs to be upgraded. For
long-wall mining, our plan for the future
is to get mines enlar-ged by merging 2
mines or opening a new large mine where
longwall mining is possible, said Swarup.
One of the ways that can boost
underground mining is through a
continuous miner. It requires less
investment and can work in difficult
conditions, even in the absence of a long
stretch
of
continuous
deposition.
Continuous miners have already been
deployed at many mines and it has shown
great potential, said Dubey.
Productivity in a mine is measured
through output (in tonnes) per man-shift
(OMS). The OMS for underground mines
of CIL in 2013-14 was 0.76. The
corresponding figure for opencast mines
was 12.31. There are restric-tions in
underground mining. Coal can only be
extracted by haulage or conveyor belts. It
has to travel a long distance and therefore
the efficiency is low, said the SCCL
official. There is, however, one important
factor which strengthens the case for
underground mining. The use of
explosives in opencast mining affects the
vege-tation, soil and wildlife around the
mine. Environ-mentally, underground
mining is much better than opencast
because it doesnt immediately affect the
natural habitat, said Swarup. Hopefully
the proportion (of underground mining)
would go up a bit in the sense of our
understanding of new technology and
opening of larger mines where new
technology could be deployed, said
Swarup.
LiveMint; July 4, 2015 (Edited)

DEBJOY SENGUPTA
Kolkata: CIL will relinquish 75% of the
area in the 2 coal blocks it had acquired in
Mozambique about 6 years ago.
The move follows the local government's
decision to double charges of holding the
blocks, which have so far not yielded any
coal worth the effort. At a board meeting last week, it was decided that Coal
India Africana Ltd, will just about keep 54
sq km of the 205 sq km blocks that it had
earlier acquired, a senior coal sector
official said. The decision was taken
following completion of a near 3-year
exploration programme.
About 6 years ago, Coal India had won a
5-year licence for exploration and
development of A1 and A2 blocks in
Mozambique's north-western province of
Tete. The blocks were unexplored and it
was upon CIL to explore and ascertain the
quality of coal there. Following the
acquisition, CIL set up Coal India
Africana for carrying out the exploration
at the 2 blocks.
When CIL acquired the blocks, the
authorities in Mozam-bique had indicated
that the 205 sq km area holds a mix of
premium and normal variety of coal, and
reserves could be around 1 BT. We were
told that 20% of the deposits in these
blocks are expected to be of superior
variety, good enough to be used in steel
making, while the remaining was expected
to be thermal used as fuel in power plants.
It seemed a viable option at that time,
said the official said.
The Economic Times; July 7, 2015
(Edited)

ONGC to cut gas production by 40%

PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi: ONGC will cut gas
production from its biggest fields in the
Arabian Sea by about 40% as it carries out
repair work on a pipeline that carries the
gas to shore. ONGC produces 33
mmscmd of natural gas from the Bassein

Coal India to return 75%

of Mozambique blocks
17

to enhance energy co-operation between

the two countries. "Our energy
cooperation is steadily growing but the
potential is much higher. Let's convert the
potential into reality," Pradhan said. IOC
has already picked up a 10% stake in an
integrated LNG project called Pacific
NorthWest LNG proposed at Lelu Island
in British Columbia. Real estate firm
Hiranandani Group has also announced
plans to develop a 4.5 MTPA LNG export
terminal in Melford, Nova Scotia, at an
estimated cost of $ 3.3 billion by 2020.
The Telegraph; July 8, 2015 (Edited)

field in the western offshore. The gas is

carried to shore by 2 under-sea pipelines,
a 42-inch line and a 32-inch line. The
company plans to carry out repair work
on the pipeline that carries natural gas
from the Bassein field to Hazira, from July
7 to 27. The repair work was to last 24
days but we have squeezed it in less than
3 weeks, a top official said. The repair
work is to tentatively start from July 7
but could be pushed back to July 8 or 9.
This would lead to stoppage of production
at some wells. The output will fall by 1314 mmscmd during the shutdown period,
he said. GAIL India Ltd, which sells gas
produced from the ONGC fields to
customers, has been intimated of the
shutdown.
GAIL will supply LNG purchased from
spot market to fertiliser plants that will be
deprived of ONGC gas. Power plants
have said that they are not in such a dire
need and they can manage without ONGC
supplies. They do not want GAIL to give
them LNG procured from Qatar on longterm contract as it costs most. Fertiliser
plants want GAIL to supply LNG from
the spot market which is 40% cheaper
than Qatar gas, the official said. While
domestic gas is priced at USD 4.66 per
mmBtu, LNG in the spot market is
available at USD 7-8 per mmBtu. LNG
from Qatar on a long-term contract costs
almost USD 13.
The Financial Express; July 3, 2015
(Edited)

Hurdle to Bengal gas project

R. SURYAMURTHY
New Delhi: A major industrial project in
investment- star-ved WB is facing
roadblocks prior to its implementation.
The proposed natural gas pipeline from
Bengal's Contai to Dattapulia and Paradip
(Odisha), planned by H- Energy Pvt Ltd,
a subsidiary of the Hiranandani Group,
seems to have run into rough weather
with stiff opposition from state-owned gas
transporter GAIL, refiner Indian Oil and
Adani Enterprises. H- Energy is setting
up a floating sto-rage regasification unit
(FSRU) on the sea near Digha with
capacity to convert 6 MPTA of imported
LNG to natural gas. The LNG terminal is
expected to be commissioned in 2018-19
at a cost of around 2,400 crore, while
the pipeline requires 2,700- crore
investment, both for the sub-sea and
onshore components put together. The
company has submitted an expression of
interest to the Petroleum and Natural Gas
Regulatory Board (PNGRB) to lay the
pipeline from Contai (East Midnapore) to
Dattapulia (Nadia) and Paradip. The oil
regulator has sought the views of the
industry players on the issue, resulting in
objections from GAIL, IOC and Adani.
The Statesman; July 6, 2015 (Edited)

Canada LNG import on menu

OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
New Delhi: India is exploring the
possibility of importing LNG and crude
oil from Canada as the country looks to
reduce its dependence on West Asia.
"Canada could potentially supply a
significant amount of the 44 billion cubic
metres of natural gas that India is forecast
to import annually by 2025," the
petroleum ministry said. Oil minister
Dharmendra Pradhan met Canadian
minister for natural resources Greg
Rickford at the second India-Canada
Ministerial Energy Dialogue in Calgary

RLNG pipeline project gets on fast

track

GAIL to resume outstanding pipelaying work

S. ANANDAN
18

Kochi: With the State getting its act

together to fast-track the 504-km R-LNG
pipeline project through its northern
districts, which had been slowed down
due to opposition from locals and
subsequent withdrawal of contractors,
GAIL is gearing up to resume
outstanding pipe-laying work in a
months time. Sources said that unfinished
work along a total distance of 31-km - in
areas in Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad
and Kasaragod districts - would
recommence in the first week of August.
The plan is to concurrently lay pipes
along the entire stretch by the end of the
year so as to finish the job by mid-2016.
A safety audit by international agencies
will be carried out before commissioning
the line, said the source. GAILs roadmap
now suggests that it is planning to
complete the work in 15 months earmarking 12 months for construction
and the rest for safety audit.
The Hindu; July 5, 2015 (Edited)

imported to the terminal will be supplied

as feedstock to fertiliser plants, and to
utility company power generation plants
for use as an alternative fuel. The
terminal will initially have the capacity to
handle 5 MMTPA, expanding to 15
MMTPA in the future, the statement
said. IOC plans to build a terminal to
import gas turned into liquid at -160
degrees Celsius in ships at Ennore at a
cost of 5,150 crore by 2019.
Ennore will be the third LNG terminal on
the east coast with GAIL building a
facility at Kakinada in AP and Petronet
LNG Ltd proposing a 5 MPTA facility at
Gangavaram in AP. India currently has
four LNG import terminals, all on the
west coast - Dahej and Hazira in Gujarat,
Dabhol in Maharashtra and Kochi in
Kerala.
LiveMint; July 6, 2015 (Edited)

L&T delivers indigenously designed

reactor for nuclear plant
OUR BUREAU
Mumbai: L&T Heavy Engineering has
delivered its first indigenously designed
pressurised heavy water reactor for the
nuclear plant being developed by NPCIL
in Gujarat. The first of the 2 nuclear 700
MWe steam generators was delivered at
the Kakrapar plant on June 16 and
another will be dispatched on Saturday.
Each steam generator weighs about 215
tonnes and is made of special low alloy
quenched and tempered steel with nickeliron-chromium alloy tubes and stainless
steel internals. M.V. Kotwal, President
(Heavy Engineering), L&T, said the
completion of the steam generator is a
major milestone towards Make in India
vision of the government.
The 3D multi-phase thermal hydraulic
analysis and safety analysis including
accidental conditions were designed inhouse by L&T. The nickel-iron-chromium
alloy U-Tubes were manufactured as a
joint effort with Nuclear Fuel Complex,
Hyderabad. L&T Special Steel and Heavy

MHI bags IOC contract for

2 LNG storage tanks at Ennore

The high-capacity LNG storage tanks

will have a capacity to hold 180,000
cubic meters of gas each
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi: Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the
nations largest fuel retailer, has awarded
a contract to build 2 football stadiumsized LNG storage tanks at its upcoming
Ennore LNG import terminal in TN to
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Pvt Ltd
(MHI) of Japan. The LNG tanks will be
the main facility at the first LNG
receiving terminal to be cons-tructed on
Indias east coast, MHI said. This is also
the first LNG storage tank order that
MHI
has
received
from
India.
Construction of the tanks is slated to
begin in July; completion is scheduled for
the spring of 2018, MHI said.
The high-capacity LNG storage tanks
will have a capacity to hold 180,000 cubic
meters of gas each and will be installed at
a LNG terminal that IOC will build near
Ennore port, about 25 kms north of
Chennai on the Bay of Bengal. LNG
19

second such agreement between Astana

and Delhi since 2009. Kazakhstan's
uranium firm KazAtomProm supplied 600
MT of uranium ore concentrate in 201011, 350 MT in 2011-12, 402.5 MT in
2012-13 and 460 MT in 2013-14. The
five-year contract to supply uranium
ended last year. Kazaksthan was one of
the first countries with which we launched
civil nuclear cooperation through a
uranium purchase contract. We are
pleased to have a much larger second
contract now, Modi said in his joint
presser with Kazakh President indicating
nuclear cooperation is a key pillar of
partnership.
The Economic Times; July 9; 2015
(Edited)

Forgings, a 65000 sq. meter integrated

facility at Hazira, will supply forgings for
future nuclear power plant projects.
LTSSHF is a JV between L&T and
NPCIL.
The Hindu Business Line; July 3, 2015
(Edited)
Kalpakkam breeder reactor to go on
stream
T.S. SUBRAMANIAN
Chennai: The 500-MWe prototype Fast
Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam is getting
ready to be commissioned in September.
When the reactor goes critical, it will
signal Indias triumphant entry into the
second stage of its 3-stage nuclear power
programme. The PFBR will use
plutonium-uranium oxide as fuel and
1,750 tonnes of liquid sodium as coolant.
We are committed to making PFBR
attain criticality in September, said P.
Chellapandi, C&MD, Bharatiya Nabikhiya
Vidyut Nigam Ltd, a public sector
undertaking of the DAE, tasked with
building breeder reactors. We are
awaiting clearance from AERB for sodium
charging, fuel loading, reactor criticality
and then stepping up power generation,
Chellapandi said.
The Hindu; July 8, 2015 (Edited)

Drop power plant move

Agitation planned during PMs visit to

Visakhapatnam
STAFF REPORTER
Srikakulam: The CPI (M) demanded that
the proposal for a nuclear power plant at
Kovvada in the Ranasthalam area of
Srikakulam district should be withdrawn
imme-diately as the AERB has not given a
site clearance certificate either to the State
government or NPCIL. The party
released a copy of the letter purportedly
written by the AERB stating that a lot of
mandated conditions need to be met
before finalising the site. The partys State
secretariat member Ch. Narasinga Rao
and other leaders said the State
government had no business to begin land
acquisition without first obtaining a site
clearance certificate from AERB.
The Hindu; July 3, 2015 (Edited)

India, Kazakhstan ink deals

on uranium supply, defence

Kazakhstan signs contract to supply

5,000 tonnes of uranium to India
during 2015-19
DIPANJAN ROY CHAUDHURY
Astana, Kazakhstan: India and Kazakhstan
inked a deal for a renewed long-term
supply of natural uranium, and a wideranging defence cooperation pact besides
a railway cooperation agreement to boost
connectivity to realise full economic
potential. Kazakhstan, a leading uranium
producer globally , will supply 5,000
tonnes of uranium to India during 201519, its President Nursultan Nazarbayev
announced following his talks with
Narendra Modi. Kazakhstan will emerge
as the biggest source of uranium for India
besides Canada and Australia. This is the

NHPC lines up 15-yr NCD to raise

1,475 cr
RAVI RANJAN PRASAD
New Delhi: NHPC will be launching
secured non-convertible bonds with 15
year tenure which has been given AAA
rating by India Ratings and Research.
NHPC is planning to raise 1,475 crore
20

by issuing these bonds with a green shoe

option of 1,275 crore. Government of
India owns 85.96% stake in the company.
India Ratings and Research has assigned
NHPCs 14.75 billion (including a
green shoe option) of 12.75billion
secured non-convertible taxable bonds a
long-term rating of 'IND AAA with a
Stable Outlook, India Ratings said in note.
NHPC proposes to raise the bonds with a
tenor of 15 year including a 3-year
moratorium period. The bonds will be
repaid in 12 annual equal repayments
beginning from the fourth year of issuance
and up to the 15th year, India Ratings
said. The funds raised through this issue
are likely to be used by the company for
meeting capital expenditure requirements
of ongoing projects and recoupment of
expenditure already incurred.
The coupon rate for the bonds will be
announced at the time of the launch and
will be spread over the 10-year
Government Securities yield, said Rakesh
Valecha Senior Director, India Ratings
and Research. NHPC in FY14, it had
revenue of 7,250 crore and in FY13 of
6,240 crore. It is operating 18 hydro
power plants with a capacity of 4,857 MW
on multiple rivers and selling to multiple
parties. As Indias largest hydro power
generating company, it contributes 12%
to all-India hydro capacity at a standalone
level.
NHPCs 4 under-construction projects of
3,290 MW capacity with an estimated
capital outlay of 23,000 crore are facing
execution delays, India Ratings said.
The projects could see an increase in
costs if execution timelines are further
extended. Moreover, the capital cost
estimates of 2 projects facing execution
delays (TLDP-IV and Subansari Lower)
have been estimated at July 2010 and
December 2010 price levels, while actual
capital costs would have increased, India
Ratings said.
Financial Chronicle; July 8, 2015
(Edited)

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Lucknow: After causing a flood-like
situation in parts of UP, heavy rains in
Uttarakhand have come to spell trouble
for UP's ailing power sector as well. As
many as 4 units, each of 100 MW, at
Vishnuprayag
hydroelectric
project,
which provides 88% power to UP, have
tripped following heavy siltation in water
channels of the power plant located on
Alaknanada River. The problem in the
power plant, located in Chamoli district of
Uttarakhand, about 15 km downstream of
the Badrinath shrine, has led to immediate
shortfall of around 300 MW in the UP
state grid. Owned by the JP group and
commissioned in 2006, these have been
facing problems during monsoon.
According to Northern Load Dispatch
Centre (NRLDC), the problem has been
prevailing since June 26 when heavy rains
were reported in upper reaches of the hill
state. There is no confirmation as to when
the four units of the power plant would
resume functioning. Officials in UPPCL,
however, said that they were in touch
with the Uttarakhand government for
early resumption of the power supply
from the project.
The tripping has, in fact, immediately
contributed to nearly one-third of the
total shortfall between power demand and
supply. According to UPPCL data, as
against a total restricted power demand of
more than 13500 MW, the supply is to
the tune of around 12400 MW, leaving a
gap of over 1000 MW according to data,
made up partially for the loss of power
from Vishnuprayag by resorting to
overdraw of around 250 MW from the
Central quota. Sources said that the
energy department asked UP Rajya
Vidyut Utpadan Nigam to step up
efficiency of state-owned power plants,
which otherwise wheeled out just around
3000 MW. Private power plants like Rosa
and Bajaj were providing 815 MW and
354 MW respectively. A major chunk of
power supply was provided by the Central
pool: around 6400 MW. UP was also
getting just above 600 MW through
bilateral and power banking.

Ukhand rains make UP power plants

trip
21

gives one the feeling of impending

construction activity. Vijaylaxmi Raturi, a
lawyer who stays across the road, says
most of the muck is debris from GVK
Power & Infrastructure's 330 MW hydel
power project a few kilo-metres upstream,
which was under construction then. It
had rained as heavily before as well but
there was never any muck, says Raturi.
The Alaknanda meets the Bhagi-rathi
downstream at Devprayag to form the
Ganga.
In a 2014 report by a committee set up by
MoEF, which said hydel projects in
Uttarakhand - home to the contro-versial
Tehri dam - aggravated the June 2013
disaster, there were conflicting views on
the impact of the Srinagar project.
According to environmental activists and
scien-tists, dams along with pollution and
climate change are among the biggest
threats facing Himalayan rivers like the
Brahmaputra, the Indus and the Ganga.
These have a direct bearing on India's
water security because Hima-layan rivers
account for nearly two-thirds of India's
national river flows, and 43% of India's
population depends on just the Ganga for
their water needs.

The Times of India; July 5, 2015

(Edited)
NHPC to develop hydroelectric
projects
in Darjeeling
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi: NHPC said it will set up 4
hydroelectric projects with a total
generation capacity of 293 MW in the
Teesta Basin of Darjeeling. In a BSE
filing, NHPC said: "An agreement has
been signed on July 3, 2015 for the
development of 4 hydroelectric projects of
total esti-mated capacity of 293 MW, in
Teesta Basin, amongst WB government,
WB State Electricity Distribution
Company and NHPC." The 4 projects are:
Teesta Low Dam-V, Teesta low dam I&II
combined, Teesta Intermediate Stage and
Rammam Stage-I, located in Darjeeling
District, it added. These projects shall be
developed on build, own, operate and
maintain basis by NHPC, the filing said.
Financial Chronicle; July 6, 2015
(Edited)
Not quite in full flow

India's water security would be

nothing more than a term if the
problems plaguing the Himalayan
rivers are not immediately addressed
For most pilgrims on their way to
Kedarnath, Srinagar in the Garhwal
region of Uttarakhand is just a town they
might stop at for a cup of tea or snack.
Almost equidistant from Haridwar and
Kedarnath, there is nothing that marks it
out. But all you need to do is stop your car
just outside Srinagar before you enter it
from Haridwar, step off the road and take
a few steps toward the Alaknanda river.
Almost immediately, scars of the floods in
Uttara-khand would be visible to
everyone, over 2 years after the disaster.
The SSB auditorium, damaged then, still
stands askew with its dome - a not so
insignificant reminder of the havoc the
river wrought between June 15 and 18 in
2013. As if that were not enough, what
used to be a park till June 14 now has
mounds of muck the river brought, which

India has 4,857 large dams (more than 15

m in height or 10-15 m if it fulfils some
other conditions) in operation and 314
under construction. While 9 out of 10
dams in India have irrigation as their
main purpose, in the Hima-layan region,
these account for 70% of hydel power
potential. India, China, Nepal and Bhutan
are in a race to build dams for hydro
power. Dams are increasingly becoming a
source of geopolitical tension between
coun-tries, especially India and China over
22

the Brahmaputra, which originates in

Tibet. Science magazine says India has
plans for 292 dams in the Himalayas to
double hydel power by 2030 and that
region could have one of the highest dam
densities in the world.
Large hydro power projects (more than
25 MW) account for 15% of India's
installed power capacity of 2,72,503 MW,
but it has identified hydel capacity to be
developed which is two-and-a-half times
the existing capacity, the highest of which
is in Arunachal Pradesh, followed by
Uttarakhand, J&K, HP and Sikkim.
The GVK project, which changed hands a
few times since the 1980s before being
acquired by the company in 2005, has
faced opposition from locals (it was
commissioned
in
March).
Bharat
Jhunjhunwala, an activist and a former
professor at IIM, Bengaluru, contested in
the High Court of Uttarakhand in 2009
that the original capacity appro-ved for
the project was only 200 MW and that
the environmental clearance given had
lapsed. The Supreme Court in 2013 gave
the project a go ahead.
Locals say that ever since the project
started operating, there has been severe
water scarcity. A GVK spokes-person says
since it is a run-of-the-river project, the
flow in the river after the powerhouse is
the same as the inflows before the dam.
He adds that to meet water requirements
of the stretch between the dam and the
powerhouse,
there
are
minimum
environmental flows of 5 cubic metres per
second, which includes public water
supply requirements, as approved by
MoEF. Environ-mental flows, which refer
to the quantity, quality and timing of
water flows required for a river to
perform its ecological functions, has
gained credence. In the Indian context,
given rivers' religious significance some
people have even added the socio-cultural
dimension to environ-mental flows. Ashok
Khurana, director general, Asso-ciation of
Power Producers, says there should be an
objective scientific assessment of hydro
projects in the Himalayas. No one wants
to defile the environment. Every project

will have an impact, but there are

mitigating measures. We first need to find
out how much hydel power can be
developed in a sustainable manner in the
Himalayas, he adds.
While those critical of large dams in India
cite the US' policy to decommission some
large dams, Kameswara Rao, partner,
energy and utilities, PwC, believes there is
more to it: Canada has continued to
invest in hydel [power] and the US
imports hydro power from Canada.
European countries like Norway, Sweden
and Switzerland continue to depend on
hydro power. One of the proposed ways
to regulate development along rivers is
cumulative impact assessment which, in
case of a hydel project, does not look only
at the impact of that project which is what
environment impact assessment (EIA)
does, but also impact on the river of all
the other hydel projects and other
developmental activities like roads and
irrigation projects in the region, the
people living there and biodiversity. We
need a river basin approach to rivers,
similar to the landscape approach we have
for forest and wildlife conservation, says
VB Mathur, director of Dehradun-based
Wildlife Institute of India.
Jhunjhunwala,
who
fought
an
unsuccessful legal battle against the
Srinagar project, says while he is not
opposed to hydel power, a part of the river
should be allowed to flow uninterrupted
at all times, unlike now when some-times
the entire flow of the river is halted. Adds
Himan-shu Thakkar of the South Asia
Network on Dams, Rivers and People,
We have accepted we need to save tigers,
but we have no law to save rivers. India's
long-pending plan to link 37 rivers has
been criticised on the grounds that it
could do irreversible damage to rivers.
The Economic Times Magazine; July 5,
2015 (Edited)
India, Russia sign MoU for funding of
hydro generation projects
AJAY KAUL, PRESS TRUST OF
INDIA
23

biggest project the government has

already identified and begun preliminary
work on is the Diamer Bhasha dam, which
would require USD 15 billion to construct
and would have a capacity of 4,500 MW.
Financial Chronicle; July 3, 2015
(Edited)

Ufa: Russias Direct Investment Fund

(RDIF) signed a MoU with Indias
Infrastructure Development Finance Co
(IDFC) for funding of hydro-generation
projects. RDIF Director General Kirill
Dmitriev told the BRICS Business
Council meeting in Ufa that his company
signed a MoU with its partners in BRICS
member-states to work with sovereign
funds, with the BRICS Bank and invest in
the equity of infrastructure projects in
these countries.
We have signed an MoU with 5 funds
from our 5 countries: the Russian Direct
Investment Fund, the Silk Road Fund
from China, IDFC from India, the
Development Bank of South Africa and
the Brazil BTG Pactual fund, he said.
With the IDFC in India, we discussed
projects in hydro-generation where
Russia has a lot of expertise, Russian
news agency Tass quoted him as saying.
The BRICS Bank will be doing a lot of
debt
providing,
while
the
IFI
(Infrastructure Fund Initiative) will be
investing in equity, Dmitriev said.
LiveMint; July 8, 2015

Renewable Energy Ministry wants

one Act for all green energy policies

Says it will lead to better

implementation; but move could spark
turf war with Power Ministry
DEBABRATA
DAS
&
RICHA
MISHRA
New Delhi: The Ministry for New &
Renewable Energy (MNRE) proposes to
put in place an Act that would bring
under one roof various policies that
govern this sector. Till now, renewable
energy sector has been policy driven and
there is no separate law governing
implementation norms. What we are
working on right now is an Act. Most of
the countries which have large
investments in renewable energy have an
Act that defines quality standards of
equipment as well as address manufacturing, standardisation and certification
issues. The Act will also provide a definite
framework for the tariff structure,
Upendra Tripathy, Secretary, MNRE,
said.
MNRE plans to put out the draft for the
Renewable Energy Act in the next 3
months. But, formulating an Act may not
be easy, as Piyush Goyals two ministries Power and New & Renewable Energy could get into a turf war.
A senior official associated with the
process said, The Act, when in place,
would be able to govern only off-grid
projects as the grid connected ones could
come under the purview of the Electricity
Act - implemented by the Power
Ministry. Whether the Power Ministry
would like to let go of its domain is the
question.

China offers USD 50 bln for

hydroelectric projects in Pakistan
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
Islamabad: China's state-run power
company, Three Gorges Corporation
(CTG), is keen to participate in a
financing consortium to fund up to USD
50 billion of hydroelectric power projects
in Pakistan. CTG expressed interest in
financing projects in Pakistan in
conjunction with International Finance
Corporation, the Express Tribune
reported. CTG owns and operates the
world's biggest Three Gorges Dam,
having a capacity of 22,500 MW, which is
equal to Pakistans total installed capacity
of 23,500 MW. Pakistan has a potential of
producing up to 60,000 MW of
hydroelectric power, of which 40,000 MW
is located in a region called the Indus
Cascade, which begins in Skardu in
Gilgit-Baltistan and runs through to
Tarbela, the site of Pakistans biggest
dam, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The
24

incentives, manufacturing policy, planning

for transmission infrastructure and
managing intermittency (in supply) is the
key driver for this exercise, the official
said. As a first step towards bringing the
wind sector under mission mode, the
government will soon announce a national
offshore wind energy policy to tap the
countrys maritime regions, which have
vast potential. Areas that have good wind
energy potential are likely to be declared
as exclusive zones.
The plan being finalised by MNRE also
includes additional sops for wind projects
over and above the incentives available
under accelerated depreciation and
generation-based incentive scheme. Such
sops could be in the form of fiscal
incentives such as exemption from service
tax for conducting wind resource
assessment, EIA, oceano-graphic study,
utilisation of survey vessels and
installation of vessels. Tax exemption
could also be considered for inter-state
sale of renewable energy and for setting
up transmission infrastructure to evacuate
this power.
In addition, the sunset period of 10-year
holiday scheme may be extended for the
entire period of the scheme up to 2022.
The tax holiday benefit under section 80IA of the income-tax act ends on March
31, 2017, making any power project that
starts operating after that date ineligible
for the sop. The incentive scheme allows a
developer to claim deduction of up to
100% of profit for any 10 consecutive
years out of the first 15 years from the
commissioning of a project.
MNRE estimates peg the countrys
current wind power generation capacity at
23,444 MW as of March 31 and solar
power capacity at 3,743.97 MW, while
grid connected renewable energy capacity
stood at 35,776.96 MW. Indias potential
for wind energy is enormous. One
estimate pegged it at 4,000 GW while
another GIS-based study suggested that
country has potential to produce 5,00,000
MW of offshore wind capacity.
Financial Chronicle; July 8, 2015
(Edited)

The government, anyway, is proposing

changes to the Electricity Act that brings
in a Renewable Generation Obligation to
ensure thermal power generators have at
least 10% of their generation capacity
from renewable energy sources. Then
there is the issue of tariff. Renew-able
energy developers, particularly solar
power produ-cers have flagged off
problems in finding buyers for the power
they generate, as it is expensive. The
solution for this again lies in the
Electricity Act. To address this issue, we
are strengthening the RPO. Once the
RPO goes up after the Electricity Act is
amended States will have to buy more
power and that is the time we need to
produce additional electricity from
renewable sources. Solar parks are also
being set up in various parts of the
country according to RPO requirements
of States, Tripathy said.
The Hindu Business Line; July 2, 2015
(Edited)
Wind power mission on anvil
to achieve 60,000 MW by 22
Policy note envisages 10,00,000 cr

outlay, fiscal sops

SUBHASH NARAYAN
The government proposes to launch a
national wind mission (NWM) on the
lines of the ongoing solar mission as part
its drive to achieve exponential growth.
The main objective of this initiative would
be to make India a global leader in wind
power, by creating conditions conducive
for its diffusion across the country in a
time-bound manner. The cabinet note on
the new policy is already in final stages
and would come up for approval shortly.
NWM will set a target of raising wind
power generation to 60,000 MW by 2022
with an investment of 10,00,000 crore.
It will aim to add further capacity through
a mix of fiscal incentives to encourage
adoption of new tech-nologies and flow of
global investments. We intend to launch
NWM before the end of this financial
year, a government official said.
The need for a long-term and stable
policy framework covering all key aspects
such as land allocation, tariff fixation,
25

renewable energy sector, Awasthi said at

a CII organised conference on Green
Energy. He mentioned 4 broad changes in
RECs lending norms for renewable
energy projects.
First, the moratorium period has been
increased from 6 months from the
commercial date of operation of the
project, to 1 year from COD. Second, the
requirement for collateral security has
been removed. Third, the repay-ment
period for loans can now be up to 15
years. Finally, the debt-equity ratio has
been made more liberal - renewable
energy projects need only 25% capital to
be eligible for REC loans and in certain
cases, REC wouldnt mind a mix of 80:20,
Awasthi said. He said that RECs
tweaking of lending norms would set a
precedent in the industry and other
financial institutions would follow suit.
REC, he said, has a line of credit from the
German fin-ancial institution, KfW, of
100 million, to lend to renewable energy
projects in India. He confirmed that the
company is also considering a tax-free
infrastructure bond issue in India. REC is
particularly keen on renewable energy
projects because, at present, there are not
many other lending opportunities. There
are not many con-ventional power
projects. Funding for rural transmission
infrastructure would be predominantly
from the governments Deen Dayal
Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana.
The Hindu Business Line; July 3, 2015
(Edited)

Clean Energy Fund to give cheaper

loans
M. RAMESH
Chennai: The Indian renewable energy
industry has for long sought cheaper
finance from the National Clean Energy
Fund (NCEF), and now it looks like its
wish will be granted. The Renewable
Energy Act, which in the works, is likely
to mandate that 50% of the balance in
NCEF will go to funding renewable
energy projects, according to GM Pillai, a
member of a 6-member sub-committee
that drafted the law. The draft is
currently under consi-deration MNRE.
Pillai, who is also the Director-General of
the World Institute of Sustainable
Energy, said so at a conference on Green
Energy.
NCEF has a corpus of over 17,000
crore, from coal cess - a 200 levy on
every tonne of coal mined in India or
imported. The Technical Committee on
Renewable Energy Law, set up by
MNRE, has recommended that NCEF
should be used to subsidise loans to
renewable energy projects so that the
industry gets funds for interest rates of
at least 9%, Pillai said. Speaking at the
conference organised by CII, Pillai also
appealed to various State electricity
regulatory commissions to take note that
O&M costs of wind farms were too high.
Manufacturers of wind turbines also
undertake O&M for a fee. Pillai said that
O&M charges were fixed without any
transparency. He wanted O&M fees to be
based on power generation or the
revenues of the wind farm. Today, the fees
are fixed on capital expenditure basis.
The Hindu Business Line; July 3, 2015
(Edited)

State signs renewable energy pact

The Centre for Study of Science,
Technology and Policy has entered into a
5-year agreement with BESCOM and
Karnataka
Renewable
Energy
Development. Two studies proposed for
are: Roadmap for 6 GW solar and 10 GW
wind power and development of rooftop
PV power.
The Economic Times; July 8, 2015
(Edited)

REC tweaks norms to

lend to renewable energy projects
M. RAMESH
Chennai: REC has tweaked its lending
norms to suit wind and solar projects, the
companys Executive Director, Ashok
Awasthi, said. We have significantly
changed our guidelines for lending to

3 Kolkata institutes tie up

for solar energy research
26

Connected Rooftop and Small Solar

Power Plants Programme which aims to
promote installation of grid connected
solar rooftop systems in residential,
industrial, commercial and institutional
sectors in the country. Urban local bodies
have been urged to frame bylaws for
installation of rooftop solar panels
compulsory in buildings. The state-wise
target has been arrived by considering
each states power consumption and
consequent
requirement
to
meet
corresponding RPOs. TN with a target of
3,500 MW stands third following
Maharashtra (4,700 MW) and Uttar
Pradesh (4,300 MW).
For promoting grid connected solar
rooftops with net metering in government
buildings, Kapoor said the power ministry
is implementing an Integrated Power
Develop-ment Scheme (IPDP). MNRE is
also seeking funds from international
financing agencies including World Bank,
KfW, ADB. The rooftop solar target fixed
by MNRE is a tentative one. MNREs
July 7 meeting of energy secre-taries in
New Delhi on solar rooftop PV projects
will throw up more details, a TN
government official said.TN is one of the
leading states in promoting solar rooftop.
Under the TN Solar Energy Policy, the
government envisages adding 350 MW
through solar rooftop including 50 MW
of domestic rooftop, the official said.
Deccan Chronicle; July 7, 2015
(Edited)

RITWIK MUKHERJEE
Kolkata: Three of Kolkatas premier
institutes of techn-ology and management
have joined hands to encourage, promote
and conduct collaborative research and
development activities on efficient solar
cells develop-ment using state-ofthe-art
laboratory facilities. The Indian Institute
of Engineering Science & Technology,
Shibpur (IIEST), Centre of Excellence for
Green Energy & Sensor System
(CEGESS) and Heritage Institute of
Technology, Kolkata (HITK), have also
lined up plans to introduce specialised
M.Tech course on renewable energy at
HITK. A MoU to this effect was signed.
This MoU and subsequent association
will facilitate joint training and research
activities by students and faculty
members. The joint collaborative research
projects, publications in journals, R&D
activities on various types of solar cells
such as organic and inorganic solar cells
are significant components of this
association, P.K. Agarwal, CEO, Heritage
Group, said. The Modi government has
set an ambitious target of 100 GW of
installed solar energy by 2022. Industry
officials think it may remain a pipe dream
unless the industry and the government
address the crucial issue of shortage of
efficient human resources.
Different studies in this regard suggest
that India will require nearly 1 million full
time efficient manpower to put up and
manage this solar capacity.
Financial Chronicle; July 7, 2015
(Edited)

Small can be big in renewable energy

S. SHYAMALA
While renewable energy industry at large
talks about large projects, clean energy
experts say the real opportunity lies in
smaller ones, especially those in the
domestic segment. They say India stands
to benefit by going for hybrid
installations, for example, using small
wind and solar systems at homes. By
effectively com-bining small wind and
solar units at homes, we can meet the
rural power demand and create a lot of
jobs, said S Gomathinayagam, director
general, National Institute of Wind

3,500 MW rooftop solar target for TN

by 2022
G. JAGANNATH
Chennai: MNRE has unveiled an
ambitious plan to achieve 40,000 MW
rooftop solar installation by 2022 and has
released
tentative
year-by-year
breakdown of capacity addition for all the
states including 3,500 MW target for TN.
In a letter to all secretaries of state and
group heads of state renewable energy
agencies, MNRE joint secretary Tarun
Kapoor outlined the plan for Grid
27

Energy. We are familiar with solar

panels for domestic use but have not yet
exploited small wind units. While solar
units can be used to generate power
during the day, wind systems can help at
night, he said.
Gomathinayagam said wind is not like
solar energy in terms of usage. While the
latter is just plug and play, wind systems
need people with necessary skills to
install, operate and maintain, which can
create jobs in rural areas, he said. Hybrid
generation is the way forward for both
large and small projects, says Chintan
Shah, president and head of strategic
business development at Suzlon Energy.
For individual units, the grid has to be
(powered) up for more than 75% of the
time to get an output of 25%. By
combining various green energy systems,
the output of the grid can be increased to
at least 40-45 %, thereby increasing
efficiency, he said.
The same principle applies to domestic
systems as well. Rajesh Lakhoni, energy
secretary to the government of TN,
wondered
why
renewable
energy
companies are not advertising domestic
solar panels like other white goods.
Domestic systems arent marketed
enough to create awareness. They should
send out the message about usages and
benefits that people can derive by setting
up domestic units, he said. Lakhoni says
TN gives up to 20,000 as subsidy on
domestic solar panels, which nor-mally
cost over 40,000. Users get the subsidy
immediately after installing the units at
home. By using solar power for airconditioners alone, one can save at least
10,000 a year on energy bills, he said.
Financial Chronicle; July 2, 2015
(Edited)

New Delhi: India will open its solarexpansion programme this month by
offering 2,100 crore ($330 million) to
set up projects across 5 states. State-run
Solar Energy Corp. of India will invite
bids for a total of 3 GW of capacity in
Gujarat, MP, UP, Karnataka and TN, MD
Ashvini Kumar said. All will be tendered
by March. Solar Energy Corp. will tender
700 MW in Gujarat, 750 MW in MP, 370
MW in UP and 500 MW each in
Karnataka and TN, Kumar said. India
aims to set up 25 solar parks by 2019,
accounting for a fifth of the 100 GW
target. The government has ear-marked
4,050 crore of funding support. So far
15 states have proposed 20 solar parks.
LiveMint; July 6, 2015 (Edited)
Indias $100 bn solar energy push to be
driven by foreign companies as locals
take backseat
REUTERS
New Delhi: Indias $100 billion push into
solar energy over the next decade will be
driven
by
foreign
players
as
uncompetitive local manufacturers fall by
the wayside, no longer protected by
government restrictions. The money
pouring into Indias solar industry is
likely to be soaked up by foreignorganised projects such as one run by
Chinas Trina Solar. Last week, Softbank
became the latest foreign player to enter
Indias solar market, leading an
investment of up to $20 billion. The
Japanese firm said it would consider
making solar panels locally, but with
Taiwans Foxconn rather than a local
manufacturer.
Many Indian solar panel producers have
benefited over the past 6 months from a
surge in demand for panels not yet
fulfilled by foreign companies. But their
small scale and outdated technology will
quickly make itself felt when global
players
arrive.
The
smaller
manufacturers of India, especially cell
manufacturers, will be adversely hit
because they are unable to compete both
on technology and even on price

India to kick off solar programme

this month with $330 million aid

Solar Energy Corp. to invite bids for a

total of 3 GW of capacity in Gujarat,
MP, UP, Karnataka and TN
ANINDYA
BLOOMBERG

UPADHYAY,

28

now because it is cheaper to buy

component parts internationally where
they are more readily available. As for
some of Indias small panel makers, they
are looking to complement the efforts of
foreign players instead of trying to derail
them. Maharishi Solar, a small Delhibased manufacturer, is looking to tie up
with a foreign company, said the
companys head Ajay Prakash Shrivastava.
It stopped producing solar panels a few
years back as it could not compete with
foreign manufacturers, primarily Chinese.
Shrivastava said import panels are as
much as 45% cheaper thanks to subsidies
in their home countries and lower
borrowing costs. Indian manufactu-rers
do have a disadvantage, he said. We are
trying to find a partner who can bring in
the latest technology.
The Financial Express; July 2, 2015
(Edited)

structures, said Jasmeet Khurana at

Bridge To India.
Indias solar panel makers can no longer
turn to the Indian government for help.
The government is more concerned about
creating jobs quickly and ensuring
plentiful power supply. India, in contrast
to Chinese and German efforts to protect
local producers, has scrapped most
restrictions on where equipment that
turns sun-shine into energy is bought.
Last year, it dropped an anti-dumping
duty on panel import. Foreign players
making panels in India are expected to
compete with local manufacturers to fulfil
so-called domestic content requirements
for government projects. Trina has
unveil-ed plans for a $500 million plant
and US-based SunEdison is investing up
to $4 billion in a manufacturing facility.
Both are tying up with Indian firms to
build the plants.
Solar targets
India said it expects peak power demand
to double over the next 5 years from
around
140,000
MW today. To help
meet that demand,
100,000 MW of
new capacity is to
come from solar
panels, and of that it
wants at least 8,000
MW to come from locally-made cells.
Foreign players manufacturing in India
will probably win the bulk of those orders.
Indian rivals like Indosolar and Moser
Baer produce panels, but they cost 8-10%
more than foreign producers, Khurana
said. It is not yet clear which foreign firms
will emerge winners, with most of the
facilities years away from being built and
big tenders for huge solar parks touted by
the government still to be awarded.
But those who can quickly build scale will
be the most able to compete on cost.
The lowest cost in manufacturing will
only come from scale and integrated
facilities, said Sujoy Ghosh, India
Country Head at First Solar. First Solar is
to build 5,000 MW of solar power before
2020, but will rely on imported panels for

Solar energy gets a new shine in India

SBG Cleantech plans to invest $20

billion over 10 years, even as doubts
persist over the viability of solar power
JYOTI MUKUL
New Delhi: A billion dollars in renewable
energy is huge but when SoftBank of
Japan announced investment of $20
billion in India's renewable energy space,
albeit over 10 years, the sector already
appears lit up. "Son Masayoshi (Chairman of SoftBank) does nothing small,"
Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Mittal
said at the announcement of the
investment through a three-way partnership between SoftBank, Bharti Enterprises
and Foxconn last month. SBG Cleantech,
which will be majority owned by
SoftBank, has taken alternative energy to
a whole new plane. India is planning to
add 100 GW of solar power capacity by
2022, of which SBG Cleantech is looking
at a 20% share. This is the biggest ever
investment plan in solar energy in India.
The venture aims to set up solar power
parks in India. The solar panels will be
imported initially; subsequently, they
could be manufactured in the country. At
the announcement of the venture, Son said
29

the commitment was in response to Prime

Minister Narendra Modi's call to invest in
the sector.
For
SoftBank,
though, the entry is
more than just
answering Modi's
call for investment.
In October 2011, it
had established SB Energy Corp to set up
renewable energy capacity in Japan. It has
been involved in construction of mega
solar power plants at Kyoto and
Shintomura, Gunma Prefecture. SoftBank
has some 20 wind and solar power
projects across Japan with capacity of
around 392 MW.
Son's plan for India was followed by a
similar ann-ouncement of building a 51.4
hectare solar park in Japan's Kagoshima
region. But, as Son put it, India offers
better scope for solar power. "Each
project in Japan is small because the size
of land is small. But I have enough
experience to expand here, especially
because India has 2 times more sunshine
than Japan. Second, the cost of
construction in India is half of that in
Japan. Twice the sunshine and half the
cost mean 4 times more efficiency to
create solar energy park in India."
Business Standard; July 8, 2015
(Edited)
Sun shines on Indias energy sector

Billionaires are moving in. It is no

longer a subsidy hungry club of wellmeaning activists

The Economic Times; July 7, 2015

(Edited)
Poor financial health, laxity of discoms
may hit solar goal
VIKAS SRIVASTAV
While the government is aiming for an
ambitious target of 100 GW solar
capacity by 2022, industry watchers say it
would be a Herculean task to achieve that
goal if states fail to implement renewable
purchase obligations (RPOs) strictly and
on a priority basis. The national tariff
policy (NTP) has proposed an increase in
the obligatory RPO to 8% by 2019 while
state discoms continue to maintain it at
30

less than 3% on an average thanks mainly

to their poor financial health. The national
average of RPOs stands 0.65% to 2%
when the obligatory purchase should be
pegged at 3%, said Sabyasachi Majumdar,
senior VP, Icra. This has led to lower
volume of renewable energy certificates
(RECs) in last 2 years. State discoms will
have to start taking RPOs seriously and
state regulatory authorities would have to
hold discoms responsible and penalise
them for failing to do so if the nation has
to meet the target of 100,000 MW solar
capacity by 2022.
If the solar RPO is in line with the
recommendations of NTP at 3%, the
incremental solar capacity requirement by
financial year 2022 would be 27,000
MW, Majumdar said. However, in the
amendments proposed to the NTP, the
solar RPO target is sought to be raised to
8% by 2019. Even under conservative
estimates, the incremental solar capacity
requirement would be quite significant at
about 19,400 MW by 2022, he said. A
senior official from Lanco Solar said that
it was states obligation to enforce these
norms, but it would be difficult for
discoms to achieve it given their poor
financial health.
The government has to now initiate
renewable genera-tion obligation (RGOs),
where even thermal projects will have to
include 10% of capacity from renewable
capa-cities such as solar and wind, which
the discoms will purchase anyway, the
Lanco official said. TC Arora, MD of
Accuenergy, said it might be difficult for
India to achieve the 100,000 MW solar
capacity target by 2022, something like
40,000-50,000 MW should be achievable
given the emphasis by the states and the
Centre. If states are unable to achieve 3%
RPO, it would be unwise to expect 8% by
2019. Anything above 50,000 MW of
solar capacity would be a bonus, he said.
The appellate tribunal on electricity
(APTEL) recently said SERCs shall give
directions as per the RPO regulations and
since the regulations recognise the REC
mechanism as a valid instrument to fulfil
the RPO, the carry forward or review

should be allowed strictly keeping in view

the availability of REC. Also, in case of
default in fulfilling of RPO by the
obligated entity, the penal provision as
provided for in the regulations should be
exercised. Icra said the APTEL order is a
positive for the renewable energy sector.
Strict implementation of RPO regulations
by SERCs in their respective states would
be crucial for ensuring timely RPO
compliance. The Supreme Courts recent
directive to uphold Rajasthan SERCs
authority to enforce RPO regulations on
captive power plants and open access
consumers would enable SERCs to
enforce RPO compliance regulations more
effectively on open access and captive
consumers across the states, which is a
positive for the sector. Renewable capacity
now stands at 35,800 MW and has grown
around 16% since 2009.
Financial Chronicle; July 8, 2015
(Edited)
TN to get 1,000 MW more
solar power this month

By this year end, government expects

to get
2,000 MW of solar power: Minister
SANGEETHA KANDAVEL
Chennai: TNs ambitious plan to tap solar
energy to narrow the power deficit in will
get a boost with the government set to
finalise deals assuring 1,000 MW solar
energy by the end of this month. Speaking
at a CII conference, Electricity Minister
Natham R. Viswanthan said that already
deals for 1,000 MW were on (including
the proposed 700 MW solar plant by
Adani Group). Agreements for another
1,000 MW would be signed by July-end.
By the end of this year the government
expects to get 2,000 MW of solar power,
he said. The State had set a target of 3,000
MW of solar power generation by 2015.
At present, the installed capacity is 149
MW.
TN was a pioneer in the new and
renewable energy sector with an installed
capacity of 8,482 MW, which accounted
for 35% of the sector in the country. The
States Energy secretary, Rajesh Lakhoni,
31

suggested that every person who

purchases a new air-conditioner buy 1 kW
solar panel. Explaining the statistics
behind the idea, he said, TN offers
20,000 subsidy per kW of solar roof top
installation in addition to the 30% Central
subsidy. With an investment of about
60,000 on solar power, a household could
save up to 10,000 per annum on power
bill. It makes a lot of economic sense.
CII suggestions
CII gave 7 suggestions to the industry to
unleash the full potential of the sector like
stricter enforcement of RPOs across all
States, either through amendment of
Electricity Act or Indian Penal Code with
penalty for non-com-pliance. Extension of
accelerated depreciation to all renewable
energy systems, allocation of funds to
renew-able energy projects from the
National Clean Energy Fund and single
window system for statutory and environmental clearances were the other
recommendations.
It also advocated deemed industry status
and deemed open access permission for
renewable energy projects in all States
and power evacuation and grid
integration
allowing
wind
power
generators in TN to feed power into the
grid. Simplification of land acquisition
and conver-sion norms by providing
deemed non-agricultural permi-ssion for
land for renewable energy projects will
also help this sector, said Ramesh Kymal,
Chairman, Renewable Energy Council,
CII-Godrej Green Business Centre.
The Hindu; July 3, 2015 (Edited)

the unit is scheduled to be operational

before February or March next year.
TANGEDCO will purchase the projects
entire output at 7.01 a unit for the next
25 years. Adani has approached DIPP) for
clearance through 3 different companies Ramnad Renewable Energy, Kamuthi
Solar Power, and Ramnad Solar Power.
About 70% of the investment will be met
through internal accruals, while the
balance will be funded through debt and
from institutional investors.
Business Standard; July 4, 2015
(Edited)
EVKS seeks white paper on Adani deal
TNCC president EVKS Elangovan
demanded AIADMK to come out with a
white paper on the MoU signed with the
Adani group on solar power. The
agreement has raised many doubts. The
details of acquisition of 5,000 acres for
Adani group has been kept secret, he
said.
The Times of India; July 6, 2015
(Edited)
Gamesa forays into solar power,
to set up 10 MW project in TN
D. GOVARDAN
Gamesa India, the wholly owned
subsidiary of Spanish wind turbine major
Gamesa, a leading player in the Indian
wind energy market having installed up
to 1,850 MW of wind power across the
country, is now foraying into solar power
projects. The company announced that it
will offer solar EPC solutions for
megawatt scale solar PV projects, besides
roof-top PV projects and rural/micro grid
pro-jects. To start with, the company has
bagged 3 solar power project orders to the
tune of 10 MW from its existing wind
energy customers in Tirupur textile
cluster.
These
projects
will
be
implemented by September.
Today, Gamesa is Indias leading wind
energy player with a 32% market share.
We are strong in EPC and have a good
brand image. What India looking for is a
good EPC contractor in solar. Our rich
experience in wind energy and our EPC
capability will help us achieve scale in

Adani Group signs MoU with TN

for 4,536 crore solar park
T.E. NARASIMHAN
Chennai: The Adani Group signed a MoU
with the TN government to set up a
4,536 crore solar park in the state. The
development comes in the backdrop of the
states decision to buy 2000 MW of solar
power by the end of this calendar year.
The Gautam Adani-led group will set up a
648 MW solar power generation capacity
in Ramanathapuram district. Construction
is expected to commence in August and
32

The project will cost an estimated 470

crore.
Hareon Solar, based in Jiangyin in Jiangsu
province, has an annual production
capacity of about 1,600 MW of solar cells,
the building blocks of PV, and about 1,200
MW of modules. The Kurnool plant will
be ready to start next March. It will add
to ReNew Powers 1,000 MW of cleanenergy projects, of which 600 MW are
commissioned.
LiveMint; July 7, 2015 (Edited)
Sterling & Wilson commissions
30 MW solar PV plant for SunEdison
in MP
V. RISHI KUMAR
Hyderabad: Sterling & Wilson (S&W) has
commissioned Sun-Edisons 30 MW Solar
PV Power Plant in Sitamau in Mandsaur
district in MP. This is part of the 50 MW
solar plant inaugurated by SunEdison.
The solar PV plant set up by S&W has
deployed the tracker system technology
for SunEdison. SunEdison was awarded
the contract under Phase 2 Batch 1 of the
Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission
under the Domestic Content Requirement
(DCR) Category. Bikesh Ogra, President,
S&Ws Electrical & Solar Business said,
We have not only completed this project
efficiently but have also created value for
our client by installing the tracker system
technology on a highly uneven surface,
and in doing so have managed to be the
first in setting up Asias largest tracker
system for SunEdison. S&W is one of
Indias leading Solar EPC players with
over 350 MW of solar projects on the
ground. It is implementing a number of
projects in various parts of the country,
including AP and Telangana. The 30 MW
Solar PV power plant uses the single axis
tracker system. The plant was completed
within 3 months from signing of the
contract.
The Hindu Business Line; July 3, 2015
(Edited)

solar power too, Ramesh Kymal, CMD,

Gamesa India, said.
He said, there are lot of synergies between
wind and solar power. Gamesa has helped
setting up 1,850 MW of wind power
capacity across specific wind zones. In all
those regions, solar power too can be
generated, either by deftly utilizing lands
on which wind mills have come up or
acquiring contiguous land nearby for
setting up solar projects. The generated
power can be evacuated through substations, already erected for the wind
power projects, to the grid, he pointed
out.
Gamesa,
which
has
established
manufacturing plants for the wind
turbines, blades and related accessories
near Chennai and Halol in Gujarat, feels
some of these capabilities could be utilized
for solar power project equipment, while
the solar PV panels would be sourced
from overseas. The company intends to
invest an additional 700-800 crore over
the next 4-5 years in scaling up these
capabilities.
Financial Chronicle; July 8, 2015
(Edited)
Hareon Solar to make first India
investment The manufacturer will

team with ReNew Power Ventures to

develop a 72 MW project in AP
ANINDYA
UPADHYAY,
BLOOMBERG
New Delhi: Hareon Solar Technology Co.,
a Chinese solar-panel maker, will invest in
India for the first time. The manufacturer
will team with ReNew Power Ventures
Pvt Ltd, an independent power producer
backed by Gold-man Sachs Group Inc., to
develop a 72 MW project in AP, the
companies said. Hareon Solar will supply
about 234,000 solar modules starting next
month. The planned plant in Kurnool
district, slated to power more than 30,000
homes and save at least 115,000 tons of
carbon dioxide a year, is due for
completion by December. This is the first
actual Chinese investment into India,
ReNew Power CEO Sumant Sinha said.

2 solar power projects inaugurated in

Mansa
HT CORRESPONDENT
33

also emphasising on biomass energy with

dual aim of enhancing farmer income from
agri-waste on one hand and saving the
environment thereby promoting clean and
green energy in the state. He welcomed
NRIs for opting for solar power and
informed that till date NRIs have invested
245 crore in 5 projects having joint
power generation capacity of 45 MW.
The Hindustan Times; July 9, 2015
(Edited)

Mansa: Mansa, with 64 MW installed

capacity of solar power, has emerged as
the torchbearer of solar energy in the
state. Besides this, Moserbaer has also
taken 150 acres of land on lease here for
setting up a 34 MW solar power project.
Punjab new and renewable energy minister Bikram Singh Majithia, along with
Balwinder
Singh
Bhunder,
MP,
inaugurated 2 solar power projects of 2.10
MW and 1 MW capacities set up by
Alianz Eco Power Ltd and Nextgen Solux
Power Pvt Ltd at the cost of 15.50
crore and 8 crore, respectively.
Speaking on the occasion, Majithia said
that the humble beginning made 3 years
ago in renewable energy sector has now
become a movement as solar power
generation has now touched 215 MW
from just 9 MW with an investment of
more than 1,500 crore. As many as 23
ground-mounted solar projects of 229
MW capacity ( 1,600 crore) and 4 solar
rooftop projects of 65 MW ( 300 crore)
are under implementation.
Majithia pointed out that Mansa has
emerged as number 1 district of the state
on solar power front as 4 such projects
having joint power generation capacity of
61 MW had been running successfully.
Majithia said that the state was taking the
concept of clean and green living to every
house by encouraging people to produce
their own power through rooftop projects
and a unique net metering policy 2014 has
been notified. With concerted efforts of
state government the IDBI bank has
launched a new scheme Surya Shakti for
financing such projects.
Majithia said that it was high time for
financial institutions to come forward
with liberal credit policies required for RE
projects. He said PEDA has recently got
expressions of Interest for 1,200 MW
against the initial estimates of 500 MW.
He said that now two bids of 500 MW
each for farmers and renowned companies
are being floated and he was confident
that these initiatives would change the
future power scenario and solar power
would become cheaper than thermal
power. He said that the government was

Agni: Triggering development of NE

Powering the NE region, Agni Power &
Electronics Pvt Ltd, an ISO 9001:2008
certified power company, has desi-gned,
installed and commissioned 1500 kWp of
SPVP system in Mizoram, 700 kWp
alone in Mizoram Univer-sity. 540 rural
information kiosks were set up for ICTenabled government service delivery to
villagers, emp-owering people at the
grassroots. Under Aizwal Solar City
initiative, Agni installed 98 solar
generators of 35 kWp.
The Telegraph; July 6, 2015 (Edited)
SunSource Energy keen on
residential rooftop segment

In talks with welfare associations to

sign PPAs
DEBABRATA DAS
New Delhi: SunSource Energy, solar
power developers with expertise in
rooftop installations for commercial and
industrial establishments, is in talks with
resident welfare associations to sign
PPAs. Today, most of the RWAs are
sourcing power and distributing it locally.
RWAs are becoming like mini-discoms,
Kushagra Nandan, COO, SunSource
Energy, said. Adarsh Das, CEO,
SunSource, added, As developers it
simplifies things for us. Instead of talking
to multiple people, we can deal with just
one legal entity like an RWA. However,
for projects to materialise, it will take
another 6-7 months.
Nandan and Das admitted that residential
rooftop segment is a difficult market to
crack as residential tariffs are still lower.
Both expect residential rooftop solar
34

 12 lakh per acre even in remote areas of

Vikarabad. Though the govern-ment
wanted to generate only 2,000 MW, it has
received applications for 6,500 MW. The
deadline for submission of bids was
extended for fourth time to 5 pm on July
10.
Deccan Chronicle; July 6; 2015
(Edited)

projects to come into the mainstream only

after 3-4 years. Unless residential tariffs
cross 6-7 a unit, rooftop solar projects
will be very tough to implement, said
Nandan. SunSource Energy has focussed
on commercial and industrial rooftop
projects.
They pointed out 2 advantages of this
model. Purely from an economic
standpoint, the blended cost of power
(diesel generators and grid-connected
power supply) turns out to be 9-10 a
unit. With solar, we can give them a 1015% discount, said Nandan. Netmetering policies where distribution
utilities purchase power generated from
rooftop solar projects, were expected to
facilitate
more
such
installations.
However, unwillingness on the part
distribution utilities is causing delays in
imple-mentation of net-metering.
The Hindu Business Line; July 3, 2015
(Edited)

SunEdison looking to buy IL&FS wind

assets
M. RAMESH
Chennai: SunEdison is in talks with
IL&FS Energy Develop-ment Company
to take over the latters wind assets.
Sources on both sides of the deal have
confirmed the talks, but said that no
decision has been taken as yet. The
American company, which is the largest
foreign investor in the Indian solar energy
space, was in the news recently, when it
announced its takeover of 400-odd MW of
wind capacity of the Mumbai-based
Continuum Wind Energy. IL&FS Energy
has about 800 MW of wind assets and
SunEdison is keen on buying it, a source
in IL&FS Energy said. SunEdisons
interest in those wind assets has come at a
time when IL&FS Energy has been trying
to put its assets in a Business Trust and
divest via a listing in Singapore. (Business
Trusts are unincorporated SPVs that
own operating, income generating assets.)
SunEdison has declared its intention to
grow in the Indian renewable energy
sector in a big way - in February, it said it
would build 25,000 MW of wind and solar
assets by 2022. The company has also
tied-up with the Adani Group to set up a
manufacturing unit that will produce solar
modules right from the basic raw
materials, silicon. Industry experts note
that M&A activity is picking up in the
wind energy sector, with a lot of assets
changing hands. In April, Rajalakshmi
Renewables,
part
of
a
group
predominantly into education, bought 63
MW of wind assets from Ashok Leyland,
for 174 crore.
The Hindu Business Line; July 3, 2015
(Edited)

Solar power projects in Telangana

jack up land prices
Hyderabad: The Telangana governments
plan to gen-erate 2,000 MW of solar
power has resulted in prices of nonagricultural land rising, particularly in
Nalgonda and Mahbubnagar districts.
Solar projects require huge parcels of
land, typically 5 acres to generate 1 MW,
pushing up demand for land. According to
sources in the Southern Discom, private
parties have been inquiring about
availability and value of lands in almost 8
districts where they intend to set up solar
power farms, prompting landowners to
increase prices.
If the land is near a sub-station, the price
skyrockets, according to power officials.
The discom has laid down a condition that
the solar power farm should be in the
vicinity of sub-stations so that grid
connectivity is easy. As per authoritative
sources, in Nalgonda district, land once
used as dump yard is now being sold for
5-7 lakh per acre. The prices are more or
less same in Warangal and Nizamabad as
well. In Ranga Reddy, where availability
of land is an issue, the going price is over
35

Interestingly, under Singhs chairmanship, DERC in May 2010 had

proposed to cut power tariff by 23% citing
healthy financial condition of private
power distribution companies but the
move was stalled by then Congress
government exercising a special power
under the Delhi Electricity Act. Although
DERC was strongly arguing for a cut in
tariff, the 3-member regu-lator, following
Singhs retirement and appointment of 2
new members, effected a series of hikes.
Since 2011, DERC is being headed by
P.D. Sudhakar, a former Special Secretary
in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. The
other members of the DERC are J.P.
Singh, a former Health Secretary in Delhi
government, and B.P. Singh, a former
NTPC director. Sudhakar and the 2 other
DERC members chose not to react to
Singhs report. The report said before
ordering hefty increases in power tariff
and creating large regulatory assets,
DERC did not even verify genuineness of
short-term power purchase by discoms at
rates higher than market prices.
There should have been a case for
reduction in electri-city tariff during the
years 2011 to 2013, said the report which
will soon be discussed by the Delhi
cabinet. The report said following
numerous billing-related com-plaints, the
Delhi government had asked DERC
whether the billing software of discoms
was checked but it refused to reply
arguing that it was quasi-judicial body
and will not follow such directives.
The Financial Express; July 4, 2015
(Edited)

Telangana to use city waste

to produce electricity
Hyderabad: The state government plans
to utilise 4,000 metric tonnes of waste
generated in the city every day to produce
power. The Swachh Hyderabad team
visited the RDF power plant in Bibinagar
mandal of Nalgonda district and discussed
with the management measures to
generate electricity using garbage. The
Bibinagar plant can produce 12 MW
power by using 1 metric ton of garbage.
The team will decide whether to upgrade
the Bibinagar plants capacity or build 4
new plants around the city to use garbage.
The team had recently visited a similar
plant in New Delhi where power is
generated out of the citys waste.
Telangana to use city waste to produce
electricity
Deccan Chronicle; July 5, 2015
(Edited)

Arvind Kejriwal led govt appointed

panel recommends removal of DERC
members
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi: In a major move, a highpowered Arvind Kejriwal led Delhi
government
committee
has
recommended removal of chairman and 2
members of Delhis quasi-judicial power
regulator DERC, holding that they totally
failed to protect the interests of
consumers. The 1-member committee of
former DERC chief Berjinder Singh was
tasked by AAP government to bring out a
white paper on the capitals power sector.
In its report, the committee observed that
when the power tariff should have been
slashed between 2011 and 2013, DERC
hiked it several times overlooking
consumers interest.
Alleging serious omissions on DERCs
part, the commi-ttee called for action for
removal of the chairman and members
who were parties to the tariff orders
passed
during
2011
to
2013.

Delhis power regulator questions

findings of expert panel
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi: DERC has defended a series
of tariff hikes in the last 4 years, virtually
questioning
an
AAP
government
appointed panel, which recommended
disbanding of the quasi-judicial body for
failing to protect the interest of
consumers. DERC Chairman P.D.
Sudhakar said the regulator increased
tariff after considering rise in power
36

purchase cost of 3 private distribution

companies which buy 95-98% of the
electricity as per long-term PPAs. The
PPAs were finalised by erstwhile Delhi
Vidyut Board (DVB) and all 3 discoms
buy 95-98% of the power as per provisions of these pacts, Sudhakar said.
Sudhakar said the power purchase pacts
were signed by DVB for 25-35 years with
discoms. The DVB, which used to supply
electricity in Delhi, was disbanded in 2002
as part of reforms in the power sector.
Last week, the high-powered committee
headed by former DERC chief Berjinder
Singh, tasked by the AAP government to
bring out a white paper on the capitals
power sector, accused the regulator of
failing to verify genuineness of short-term
power purchase by the discoms. In its
report, the committee said when the
power tariff should have been slashed
between 2011 and 2013, DERC hiked it
several times, overlooking consu-mers
interest. Interestingly, under Singhs
chairmanship, the DERC in May 2010
had proposed to cut power tariff by 23%,
citing healthy financial condition of the
private power distribution companies but
the move was stalled by the then
Congress government.
Sudhakar said he was yet to examine the
Singh commi-ttee report but asserted that
short-term power purchase cost of
discoms is minuscule, indicating that the
commi-ttees observation was not based
on facts. According to official figures,
around 80-90% of total revenue of
discoms goes into purchasing power from
central and state government-owned
entities through long term PPAs at rates
determined by central and state
regulators.
The committee, appointed in March,
recommended removal of Sudhakar and 2
other members. Sources said the Delhi
government has the authority to remove
the DERC chairman and other members.
Sudhakars 5-year term will end next year.
Asked whether DERC was going ahead
with announcing power tariff either in
July or August, Sudhakar said the
Commission is yet to take a final decision.

On June 12, the DERC had hiked tariff by

upto 6% as it restored a surcharge to
compensate
private
distribution
companies for rise in power purchase cost.
The AAP government strongly criticised
the DERC for the hike and said it was
exploring legal option against the
decision. The Delhi government had
asked DERC not to hike tariff till CAG
submits its report on discom finances.
Power tariff was a major issue for AAP
during the Delhi polls. The Kejriwal
government had in February announ-ced
a 50% subsidy on monthly power
consumption of up to 400 units till the
government receives the CAG report on
financial condition of the discoms. In its
first stint, the AAP government had
ordered a CAG audit of all the 3 discoms,
claiming they have been misleading the
govern-ment and the DERC about their
financial position.
The city has seen a series of power tariff
hikes in the past 2 years. The tariff was
hiked by 22% in 2011 followed by 5% rise
in February 2012. The tariff was increased
by up to 2% in May 2012 and again by
26% for domestic consumers in July 2012.
It was hiked by up to 3% in February
2013 and again by 5% in August 2013. It
was increased by up to 7% in November
last year. The cost of buying power has
increased primarily on account of an
increase in the input prices of raw
material like coal and gas, officials said.
The Financial Express; July 5, 2015
(Edited)
DERCs penalty scheme gets a cold
response

Implementing penalty on discoms for

unscheduled power cuts is going to
take longer
STAFF REPORTER
New Delhi: DERC has extended the last
date
for
sub-mission
of
comments/objections on the draft Delhi
Electricity Supply Code and Performance
Standards
(Second
Amendment)
Regulations, 2015 till July 13. The earlier
deadline expired, but the Commission said
they had extended it after receiving
requests
from
consumers
and
37

be
recovered
through
guaranteed
operation of the plant at 80% PLF. The
energy charge was linked to the specified
station heat rate and the same was passed
through to the discoms.
GMR stated that after passing of the AP
Reorganisation Act, the Vemagiri unit had
become an inter-state generating station.
Hence, any dispute on tariff for a
generating station having a composite
scheme for generation and sale of
electricity in more than one state has to be
decided by Central commission under
Section 79(1)(f) of the 2003 Act. This was
accepted by CERC which asked both AP
and Telangana utilities to file their
responses. But AP contends that GMR
Vemagiri is located in the state and, as per
the Reorganisation Act, it alone can
decide on the compensation issue.
Telangana says as per the PPA, power is
supplied to Telangana also and it can also
have a say in the dispute. Since the PPAs
were scrapped, there is no way that
Telangana could intervene, according to
AP. On the other hand, CERC said that
since GMR Vemagiri supplies power to
both AP and Telangana, any dispute shall
be dealt only by CERC and not the ERCs
of two the states.
Deccan Chronicle; July 7, 2015
(Edited)

stakeholders. Sources, however, said the

regulator has received a very cold
response from the public. Only 4 or 5
comments have been submitted till now,
informed an official. Last week, DERC
came out with a draft notify-cation for
amending the penalty clause in the Delhi
Electricity Supply Code and Performance
Standard regulations, a day after the State
government asked the regulator to start
penalising
power
companies
for
unscheduled outages. The penalty amount
ranges between 25 and 100 per hour
for failure to act against complaints
related to outages.
The Hindu; July 3, 2015 (Edited)
Power regulators in tussle over
Electricity Act
Bh. RMAKRISHNA
Hyderabad: The electricity regulatory
commissions at the Centre and in AP and
TS are locked in a tussle over guide-lines
stipulated in the Electricity Act to address
disputes between states. CERC says that
it alone can take up issues on a power
plant supplying power to more than one
state. The TS and AP ERCs insist that
they can resolve the issues that emanate
within their states. After the CERC
directive in a case related to GMR
Vemagiri, the TS and AP ERCs have filed
petitions in the High Court challenging
the order. They fear that they may lose
their power to address issues and they
may be confined to ratification of tariff
orders. There were 86 cases before
APERC at the time of bifurcation. Since
there was no clarity, the AP and TS ERCs
have taken up those that have a bearing
on their states individually. AP says it
should try all the 86 cases. TS opposes
this, stating that it has equal powers as an
independent state.
GMR Vemagiri, one of the first
generation gas-based units, has sought
the intervention of CERC on a complaint
that it suffered losses and both the Telugu
states have to pay for it. GMR entered
into PPA with the erstwhile AP State
Electricity Board on March 31, 1997
according to which the project cost was to

CERC ruling: Hydro electricity from

Narmada set to get costlier

SSNNL accounts to be audited

PREMAL BALAN
Ahmedabad: Hydro power generated by
Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd
(SSNNL) in Kevadia is set to get costlier.
Not only that, all accounts related to
power sale by SSNNL will be scrutinized
by an independent regulator. Capping a
10-year-old dispute, CERC will now
decide the tariff for electricity generated
by 2 hydro power stations. Ruling that
SSNNL is a power-generating company,
CERC also directed that the costs,
charges, expenses and accounts of SSNNL
be scrutinized by an independent
regulator to examine if actual expenses
38

incurred are passed on to consumers and

tariff determined on prudence check.
Currently, SSNNL is not accountable to
any regulatory authority. The 1,450 MW
hydro power generated from the River
Bed Power House (RBPH) and Canal
Head Power House (CHPH) on the
Narmada Dam is being distributed
between 3 states - MP, Maharashtra and
Gujarat in the ratio of 57:27:16. The
order, passed last week, further said that
SSNNL cannot be conceived as an agent
or a trustee of states. MP and
Maharashtra are partners in the Sardar
Sarovar Project. SSNNL was also directed
to make appropriate applications before
CERC for approval of tariff of its
generating stations and transmission lines
in accordance with CERC (terms and
conditions of tariff) regulations, 2014 for
the period 2014-19.
The issue whether SSNNL comes under
purview of CERC or not was taken up by
the regulator on suo moto basis in 2012.
All 3 states were opposed to SSNNL
being brought under CERCs jurisdiction
on the ground that there was no sale of
power involved. The electricity was only
distributed as per an agreement between
the states. SSNNL had argued that it was
not a power generating company, but
merely an operating agent to deliver
electricity at a particular point to MP and
Maharashtra. Hence CERC had no power
to exercise regulatory power under the
Electricity Act, 2003.
CERC observed that power generated was
evacuated by SSNNL to power discoms of
respective states at a provi-sional tariff
ranging from 2-2.05 per unit. This
power was in turn being sold by discoms
as per their respective PPAs. Based on
this, CERC concluded that SSNNL was a
power generating company that sells
power in more than one state and thereby
falls within its jurisdiction.
The Times of India; July 6, 2015
(Edited)

DEBABRATA
DAS
&
RICHA
MISHRA
New Delhi: The Centre has allowed
NTPC and PTC India to charge dollarlinked tariffs for their new solar projects.
Minister of New and Renewable Energy
Piyush Goyal had taken a decision on this
recently. We have asked NTPC and PTC
to go for dollar-linked tariffs for 1,000
MW each on a pilot basis. If successful
they can go up to 10,000 MW each with
the same tariff mechanism, MNRE
Secretary Upendra Tripathy, said. The
idea of developers getting dollar-linked
tariffs from distribution utilities has been
mooted to get grid parity for solar power.
Distribution utilities are expected to
quote tariffs in dollar-linked rates for 25year contracts. Currently, solar power is
sold at around 6-7 a unit, coal-based
power is sold at 3-4 a unit and gas at
around 4-7 a unit. Dollar-linked tariffs
can bring down solar power costs to
below 4-5 a unit, according to industry
officials. However, the model could
require hedging cost to cover rupee
depreciation against the dollar. Modalities
are yet to be firmed up.
The Hindu Business Line; July 6, 2015
(Edited)
Regulators order on purchasing power
may weigh on Mahagenco

MERC has asked Mahavitaran to buy

power where generation cost is not
more than 2.53 per unit. Mahagenco
averages around 4.25
MAKARAND GADGIL
A recent MERC directive asking stateowned discom Mahavitaran Ltd to try and
limit the cost of its electricity purchases
will bring relief to consumers but also
lead to shutdown of a quarter of the
generation capacity of Maharashtras
state-owned power generation company.
On 26 June, MERC issued its tariff order
for 2015-16 for Mahavitaran. The order
noted that Mahavitaran should buy power
where generation cost is not more than
2.53 per unit. If it has to purchase costlier
power, it should strictly adhere to the
merit order dispatch code. The merit

NTPC, PTC India allowed dollarlinked

tariffs for new solar projects
39

...this helped us to propose reduction of

30 paisa per unit in our tariff proposal for
financial year 2015-16 to MERC. Thanks
to various measures we are taking, we are
confident we will manage to reduce our
per unit cost by 30-40 paisa more,
Shrimali added.
LiveMint; July 6, 2015 (Edited)

order dispatch code states that power

must be purchased in order of generation
cost.
MERCs order is a major victory for
electricity consumers across the state as
consumers were unnecessarily bur-dened
with high-cost power of Mahagenco, said
Pratap Hogade, president of Maharashtra
Power Consumers Association. The
average cost of power purchased by
Mahavitaran from central government
companies such as NTPC and IPPs is
around
3.25 per unit, while
Mahagencos average cost is higher at
around 4.25 per unit. This takes
Mahavitarans average power purchase
cost to 3.75, Hogade pointed out.
One major reason behind the high cost of
Mahagencos power is the delay in
executing new projects undertaken since
2004. While IPPs, on an average, have
completed power projects in 3-4 years, it
takes Mahagenco 5-7 years to complete
its projects. It is also operating at PLF
which pushes up the unit cost. The PLF
for NTPC is more than 85%, while
Mahagencos average PLF is at about
60%.
MERCs order is a welcome move
because Mahavitaran during the last
financial year sold 16% of power it
purchased by incurring losses in the open
market, said Ashok Pendse, designated
consumer representative with MERC. So,
even if Mahagencos plants remain shut
and Mahavitaran has to pay fixed cost to
the generation utility, consumers will
benefit because then they wont have to
bear the burden of variable cost, he
added. In the case of thermal power, 6070% of per unit cost is fixed cost and the
rest is variable cost.
Mahagenco MD Bipin Shrimali, however,
dismissed fears of Mahagencos plants
remaining shut. I think fears of our
plants remaining shut down are
exaggerated. The countrys economy is
growing. We need power from all
available sources, Shrimali said, adding
that Mahagenco has taken a number of
measures to reduce the cost of power,
including improving O&M practices.

Discom to cut rural power theft

TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Gurgaon: HERC has directed Dakshin
Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) to
bring down power theft in rural areas of
the state by half. HERC has set March
2016 as the deadline for achieving this
target, failing which officials in-charge of
individual feeders would be penalized.
HERC has also ordered DHBVN to bring
down transformer damage rates by half,
from the existing 10% to 5%, and submit a
report on it by November. The directive is
aimed at ensuring uninterrupted supply in
rural Haryana, HERC officials said.
Rural areas witness frequent power cuts
on account of line losses. Power theft is
above 50% in rural areas. It will be a
herculean task to bring it down, said
DHBVN's
chief
general
manager
(commercial) J.B. Mudgil. We have
informed officials across all operation
circles that junior engineers and SDOs
responsible for individual feeders to
personally ensure that transmission losses
are brought down. If they are unable to
bring down the losses by half, the circle
office will decide how much fine is to be
levied on them, he added.
The Times of India; July 6, 2015
(Edited)
UPERC raps PCL for failure to check
line losses
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Lucknow: UPERC has decided to hold
officials of the UP Power Corporation
(UPPCL) personally responsible for not
being able to check instances of power
theft and high line losses. The commission
slapped notices on MD of Madhyanchal
Electricity Distribution Company and
chief engineers of Lucknow, Bareilly and
40

Faizabad zones which have been

registering high AT&C losses. The
officials have been summoned by the
commission to appear in person before it
on July 21.
Bareilly and Shahjahanpur registered line
losses of around 40% in 2014-15, while
Faizabad zone had line losses to the tune
of 37%. The Lucknow zone under Lucknow Electricity Supply Administration
(Lesa) too wit-nessed a high AT&C losses
of over 38%. The commission said
reduction in AT&C losses has not been
satisfactory in the said zones necessitating
action against officials under section 142
of the state electricity act. It may be
recalled that based on the performance in
reduction of AT&C losses, UPERC had
reduced the burden of regulatory
surcharge on consumers through its order
on April 22.
In favour of waiver
UPERC suggested that the UP
government waive off electricity duty
levied on consumers. While 5% duty is
levied on urban domestic consumers, it
rises to 7.5% on rural metered consumers.
In case of unmetered rural consumers, the
state government charges electricity duty
of 20%. The suggestion came on a petition
filed by UP Rajya Vidyut Upbhogta
Parishad. Its President A.K. Verma had
cited how in various states, the state
government does not charge any
electricity duty on consumers.
The Times of India; July 3, 2015
(Edited)

SC stays CERC order asking FTIL

to transfer IEX shares
INDU BHAN
New Delhi: The Supreme Court stayed
the CERC order that asked Financial
Technologies India Ltd (FTIL) to transfer
its entire shareholding in India Energy
Exchange (IEX) to a separate trust demat
account created by the electricity bourse.
A bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi,
while staying a June 26 order, also asked
the commission to respond to FTILs
application plea. CERC had given FTIL
time till July 2 to transfer its shares in
IEX, which is the countrys leading power
exchange with more than 95% of the
market share, to an IEX-owned trust
demat account and exit the exchange by
July 20.
The Financial Express; July 3, 2015
(Edited)

SEB losses widen to 3 lakh cr: Icra

Debt-laden SEBs' accumulated losses

widened by 58% fe BUREAU
Debt-laden state electricity boards (SEBs)
accumulated losses have widened by 58%
to a whopping 3 lakh crore in the 2
years to March 31, 2014, Icra said in a
report. The government had designed a
financial restructuring plan (FRP) in FY
13 for these entities when their
accumulated losses stood at 1.9 lakh
crore. SEBs/discoms in UP, TN,
Rajasthan, Haryana, Bihar, Jharkhand, AP
and Telangana that accounted for over
70% of the losses then, signed up for the
FRP in September 2012. The continuing
rise in SEB losses is primarily due to their
failure in implementing timely tariff
revisions, although this is mandated under
FRP. For the current fiscal, the ERCs of
20 states have issued tariff orders but
states that are part of FRP have suffered
delays of 6-11 months in tariff
determination, Icra said. It added that the
tariff orders for FY 16 were also pending
in states such as TN and Rajasthan
among others.

Cut in power bills of

small, medium industries in offing
PIONEER NEW SERVICE
Ludhiana: The Punjab Government is
considering to provide relief in electricity
charges to small and medium industries.
Besides, re-launching the one-time
settlement (OTS) scheme for the benefit
of remaining borrowers is also on its
agenda. The information was shared by
Industries and Commerce Minister
Madan Mohan Mittal with industrialists.
The Pioneer; July 4, 2015 (Edited)
41

The extent of average tariff hike based on

tariff orders issued by SERCs across these
states (part of FRP) continues to remain
limited at 5%, as against 9% and 7% for
the previous 2 fiscal years respectively,
Icra said.
Inadequate and delayed tariff revision
have also resulted in ballooning of the
regulatory assets, estimated at 84,000
crore, for discoms in 3 states mainly
(Rajasthan, TN and UP), Icra added.
The Financial Express; July 8, 2015
(Edited)

average gap between the cost of purchase

of power and the tariff charged by discom
is about 82 paise, resulting in losses of
about 86,000 crore per annum. The
cumulative losses today stand at about
3 lakh crore. The health of the discoms is
the most important issue that needs
fixing. One way could be that the Union
governments grants, under distribution
sche-mes, be injected as equity and thus
the government becomes a part of the
management of discoms, for a short while
albeit. As soon as they become
commercially viable, the equity of the
Union government can be either
transferred to states at zero cost or
disinvested. This will also facilitate the
discoms to raise capital by 4-5 times.
Further, a direct benefits transfer scheme,
as is being done for LPG, wherein the
discom shall bill the consumer on the
basis of actual rates and the subsidy is
passed on to the consumer directly
through her bank account, needs to be
introduced. The possibility of a holding
com-pany on a regional basis, i.e, covering
more than 1 state, through a SPV of the
central and state governments, can also be
explored.
*Institution
building:
Discom
management should be at arms-length
from the government. It is important for
them to recruit young and talented
professionals and blend them with
experienced professionals for experi-ence
sharing and increase their focus on HRD.
*Integration of new technology: The
reliance on new technology should be
stepped up so that the distribution
segment is steered towards viability and
the efficiency and power quality of
distribution
systems
improves.
Outstanding
payment-linked
loadshedding needs to be introduced, just as
there is cessation of services in the
telecom sector for non-payment of bills or
expiry of bal-ance. For example,
consumers who have arrears could be
made the first segment to experience such
load-shedding, followed by those who
have made partial payment. Curtailment
can also be prioritised, first for power

No bailout for discoms: Goyal

OUR BUREAU
Kolkata: Power Minister Piyush Goyal
ruled out any bail-out for discoms which
have run up huge debts. I am considering
a high level committee comprising all
stakeholders to take up issues with the
discoms on a case by case basis. There will
be no bailout of discoms. The Centre will
be handholding them to recovery, Goyal
said.
The Hindu Business Line; July 3, 2015
(Edited)
Fixing discom finances

Instead of bailouts for state-owned

discoms, power retail must be run on
commercial principles
R.N. NAYAK
The power sector has come a long way
since Indepen-dence, from 1,300 MW to
over 2,70,000 MW in genera-tion capacity
and from 2,700 km of 132 kV to more
than 7,00,000 km transmission lines up to
1,200 kV level and from 3,000
villages/towns to nearly 5,72,000
electrified today. Commendable progress
has been made after the enactment of the
Electricity Act 2003 for reforms and
restructuring to bring competition and
efficiency, including a vibrant electricity
market. The new govern-ment has taken a
large number of initiatives to resolve
pending issues pertaining to coal, gas,
nuclear and renewable energy. These are
the issues that need to be addressed fast:
*Running discoms on commercial
principles: It has been reported that the
42

on interest was too short a duration to

bring about any change. Rajasthan
recently announced that it was looking for
a second round of restructuring, having
already recast its short-term liabilities
under the FRP in 2013. The committee
has an eclectic mix including states that
have done well on the distribution front.
The goal of the committee will be use the
available expertise and bring out a plan to
make FRP result oriented, the official
added.
The committee was chaired by power
secretary Pradeep Kumar Pujari along
with
representation
from
central
government-run organisations PFC and
REC. Secretary in the department of
financial services is also a part of the
panel. Among states invited to be part of
the committee are Bihar, Assam, Gujarat,
UP, Rajasthan and AP. The body also
includes private distribution firms as
special invitees - Tata Power Delhi
Distribution Ltd and Calcutta Electricity
Supply Corp.
The Financial Express; July 4, 2015
(Edited)

circuit loads and then for lighting loads.

This will encourage timely payments by
consumers and also higher satisfaction.
Low-cost smart meters can be used for
this purpose. It is important to
understand that generation addition
should be coupled with energy efficiency
and demand-response mechanisms to
meet the energy requirement of the
country.
*Strong regulatory mechanism: Our
country has esta-blished a very effective
regulatory mechanism through the
CERC, JERCs, SRCs. The need of the
hour is for the regulators to be proactive
and ensure the operation of discoms on
commercial principles.
The author is C&MD, Power Grid
Corporation of India.
Business Standard; July 9, 2015 (Editd)
States, discoms, lenders discuss
ways to cut distribution losses
fe BUREAU
Amid growing concern over effectiveness
of the FRP designed to help cut the losses
of discoms, the Union power ministry
held the first meeting of a committee that
comprises states, private distribution
companies and state-run lenders on the
issue. The committee has been tasked to
prepare a report on financial viability and
restructuring of discoms. The FRP was
approved by the previous UPA
government in October, 2012 after
accumulated losses of discoms exceeded
2 lakh crore and threatened to hurt the
banking system. It was an introductory
meeting with the new secretary in the
power ministry. However, we did discuss
issues of improving operational efficiency
and bridging the gap between aggregate
revenue requirement (ARR) and average
cost of supply (ACS) of the discoms, a
government official said after the meeting.
He added that the prima facie, the FRP
hadnt yielded desired results.
States like UP and Rajasthan, signatories
to the FRP, have had problems paring
their debt and cutting operational losses.
UP had expressed its displeasure over the
FRP saying that the 3-year moratorium

Volume of power traded

in spot market falls 15%
fe BUREAU
New Delhi: The volume of electricity
traded in the power spot market fell by
15% to 2.4 BU in June compared with
May due to low demand from distribution
utilities, IEX said. The market clearing
price for June remained nearly flat at
2.56/unit, down 2% from May. The
average clearing price - bid prices
discovered
after
accounting
for
transmission congestion - varied between
2.18-3 per unit except in the northern
region, where it rose by over 40% to
3.18 per unit compared with a month ago.
The Financial Express; July 4, 2015
(Edited)
Revenue model for energy

Expert team presents scheme details

before holding company
SANJEEV KUMAR VERMA
43

encourages consumers to pay regularly,"

said the distribution com-pany official.
Power is supplied to consumers through
feeders
with
which
distribution
transformers remain connected. In Bihar,
there are 2,200 feeders through which the
power distribution companies supply
2,500 MW-2,700MW among about 6
million consumers. Following the
presentation on July 2, team members met
senior officials of the power company to
brief them about the different aspects of
the revenue-linked supply scheme.
Sharing details about the initiative taken
so far by the power company in Bihar for
generating the necessary data before
shifting to the revenue-linked supply
scheme, a senior official of the company
said a pilot project to generate power
supply and revenue data has been
launched in Chhapra, Siwan, Purnea,
Katihar, Darbhanga, Bhojpur and Patna
(rural) divisions. The official, however,
made it clear that any final decision to
adopt the Maharashtra model in the state
would be taken only after a detailed study
of the ground realities and how could it be
made more consumer-friendly.
The Statesman; July 6, 2015 (Edited)

Patna: Bihar is mulling over adopting the

Maharashtra model of power supply to
ensure consumers who regu-larly pay
their bills enjoy quality energy. The
model of revenue-linked supply scheme
entails more power to consumers who pay
their bills regularly and also don't indulge
in power theft. It also aims to economise
the functioning of the power companies in
the state. At present, against its average
annual expense of about 8,100 crore,
the Bihar State Power (Holding)
Company generates a revenue of about
5,100 crore per annum and has to depend
on government assistance of about
3,000 crore to meet its expenses.
Power pilferage from illegal hooking is a
major problem in the state, including
Patna, and the power holding com-pany
and its undertakings frequently take steps
to counter it. For instance, last year,
Patna Electric Supply Undertaking laid
aerial bunched cables to check power
theft. The Maharashtra model could be a
saviour for the loss-making power
company for it ensures the best feeders for
areas with the most revenue collection. A
3- member team of experts from
Maharashtra visited the state this week
and made a detailed presentation on the
revenue-linked supply scheme to the field
officials of the power company.
"Apart from briefing participants about
the technical aspects of the scheme, the
team also briefed us on how they have
different categories of feeders on the basis
of percentage of revenue collection in an
area using which power shedding is
decided," a senior official of Bihar State
Power Distribution Company Ltd, who
was present during the presentation, said.
In the Maharashtra model, the bestperforming feeders are kept in the
category, which have a revenue loss of
less than 20% against the input cost for
power supply. The worst ones are in those
where revenue loss is more than 60% of
the input cost for supplying power.
"In case of load shedding, power is first
cut in more loss-making feeders so that
the maximum revenue from the available
power can be generated. It also

State hits new power guzzling high

B. SIVAKUMAR, TIMES NEWS
NETWORK
Chennai: TN hit an all-time high in power
consumption at 298.914 MU over a period
of 24 hours. Officials said the spurt in
demand for power corresponded with a
rise in temperature, with various sections
of consumers contri-buting to a steep
increase in electricity use. Domestic
consumers, especially in the districts,
accounted for a large part in the spike in
consumption on July 2. Industries and
other commercial consumers drew more
power, too, but power managers in the
state were able to meet the demand with
an increase in supply. The state set its
previous record for power consumption of
271.043 MU on March 22 last year.
A senior TNEB official said total demand
in the state is around 13,000 MW but
consumption hit 298 MU units on July 2
44

as domestic consumers and industries led

an incre-ase in drawing of power from the
grid. "With the rainfall receding and the
weather growing hot, domestic and
industrial consumption peaked. Farmers
too contribute to the rise in consumption
because they receive power for 20 hours a
day through three phase supply."
With the consumption rising, Tangedco
can hope to earn extra revenue. An
increase in tariff did not reflect in a rise in
the power utility's revenue till last year
because lack of power supply ensured that
overall consumption did not increase. "All
thermal units as well as wind power
generation are now being used in the grid
and there is unlikely to be any shortage
even if the demand crosses 14,000MW,"
the senior official said.
A CII official said industries earlier used
generators during days when demand
peaked. "But more and more indus-tries
are now using power from the grid as it is
available without any outage," he said.
"This will help companies, especially
smaller firms, to save money, he added.
The Times of India; July 4, 2015
(Edited)

We have shown our will to surrender

2,255 MW and by doing this we will be
able to reduce the price of electricity. At
present we are buying electricity at 5-8
from NTPC but we can buy it half the
price. Industries in Delhi are paying as
high as 10 per unit. Reason for selling
expensive power to Delhi is still not clear.
Previous government made long term
PPA with Central govern-ment which is
not logical, Jain said. Jain confirmed that
there will be no shortage of electricity if
Delhi surrenders their share of electricity.
Financial Chronicle; July 8, 2015
(Edited)
UP not utilising full power quota from
Centre
HT CORRESPONDENT
Lucknow: In a sharp contrast to earlier
years, UPPCL these days is frequently
surrendering a part of the electricity
quota available from the Centre on the
plea of the same not being required.
Earlier, the state has always accused the
Centre of not providing it the full
electricity share due to it. But, this time
the Centre is providing around 5000 MW
to UPPCL every day year unlike last year
when it was only 3000-3500 MW, said
sources. Sources said the states own inhouse power production was also more
this year. When the demand is low, we
often surrender some amount of power
available from the Centre, said an official,
adding for example, on Monday also we
surrendered 800 MW of power to the
Centre. This has, however, raised a
question over UPPCLs wisdom for its
surrendering cheaper power and buying
expensive one from the private power
plants. As per the merit order put in
place by the UPERC, UPPCL is supposed
to buy the cheaper power first, UP Rajya
Vidyut Upbhokta Parishad president A.K.
Verma said.
The Hindustan Times; July 8, 2015
(Edited)

Delhi proposes to surrender

2,255 MW of electricity
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi: In order to reduce the power
rate in the city, Delhi government has
proposed to surrender 2,255 MW
electricity it buys at a high rate from
central public sector undertakings
(CPSUs). According to a senior
government official, the average power
purchase cost of Delhi is high in
comparison to other states, resulting in
the levy of higher electricity tariff.
We have requested Central government
that electricity in Delhi is being given at a
very high price. So we want to surrender
power we get from CPSUs. For example
NTPC supplies power to other states but
rate for Delhi is almost double. We
(Delhi) are buying electricity at 5-8
from CPSUs, Delhi power minister
Satyendra Jain said when he went to meet
Union power minister Piyush Goyal.

Energy wing pulled up

on farm power in Telangana
B.H. RAMAKRISHNA
45

Hyderabad: The Telangana finance

department has asked the energy
department why its subsidy should not be
cut down, as its supply to the agriculture
sector would have been lower in the Rabi
season. According to the TSERC, the
total subsidy promised for 2015-16 was
4,227 crore.
The government agreed to release 354
crore every month as subsidy. Now, the
finance department has pointed out that
paddy cultivation was substantially lower
in the Rabi season due to lack of ground
water. The sowing of all crops including
paddy was nearly 32% less compared to
the previous year. The state government
had campaigned intensively to dissuade
farmers from sowing paddy as the ground
water levels were totally depleted.
Farmers largely complied, and paddy
output fell by 32%. Consequently, power
supply to agricultural pumpsets was
reduced from 7 hours to 6, and in some
areas to 5.5 hours.
The finance department is now pointing
out that if sowing was reduced and so was
power supply, the amount that was spent
on free power to the agriculture sector
should also come down. It has become a
habit for discoms to show in their ARR
that its losses were mainly due to free
supply of power to over 23 lakh
agricultural pumpsets. Both discoms
together claim a loss of over 2500
crore. But experts say the consumption
estimates are faulty. The finance
departments query in effect questions the
basic estimation methodology. It is for
power utilities as well as the energy
department to explain, sources said.
Deccan Chronicle; July 6, 2015
(Edited)

Electricity Supply Co Ltd (CESC). The

funds sanctioned 3 years ago had not yet
been utilised, they said at the district
vigilance committee meeting. Laying of
under-ground cables, strengthening of
network and minimising distribution loss
were some of the works to be taken under
the grants. They questioned the
authorities of the electricity supply
company why they had not made use of
the grants. Muniraju, Chief Engineer
(Electricity) of CESC, speaking on behalf
of the CESC chairperson who was at
Belagavi attending the Assembly session,
said that CESC had appointed an agency
to take up the work but it had not been
executed so fresh tenders would be called.
Mr. Dhruvanarayan said that the funds
had been released about three-and-a-halfyears ago. If CESCOM wanted to upgrade
the power distribution system, the funds
could have been utilised. He added that
CESC should address issues such as
unscheduled load shedding particularly in
rural areas and drop in voltages in
Mysore district.
The Hindu; July 5, 2015 (Edited)
Government didnt hike power tariff:
Milind
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Margao: Power minister Milind Naik
refuted allegations that the state
government was responsible for the steep
hike in the power tariffs. Naik told that it
was the joint electricity regulatory
commission that had stipulated the hike in
the tariffs and that the government had no
control over the body. Replying to a
query about delay in issuing of power
bills, Naik clarified that almost 95% of the
power bills had now been cleared and
were being delivered by Goa Electronics
Ltd to the consumers monthly. When
brought to his attention that power
department personnel do not promptly
respond to telephone calls made by
residents to sub-stations complaining
about power interruptions, Naik said, "We
have set up the 24X7 complaint facility
'1912' wherein the public can call and
register their complaints that will be

MPs take CESC officials to task for

not utilising 100 cr Central grant
H.S. NARASIMHA KUMAR
Mysuru: MPs R. Dhurvanarayan and
Pratap Simha have taken strong exception
to non-utilisation of 100 crore Central
grants
under
the
Restructured
Accelerated Power Development Reforms
Programme
by
Chamundeshwari
46

authority (DDMA). This direction is

issued according to provisions of Sections
30.2 (III) (V), (XX), (XXIII) of the
Disaster Management Act, 2005. There
are around 70,000 families residing in the
hills, according to a 2011 survey by an
NGO. "Most families have encroached on
the hills in the last 5 years or so. The
speed with which they get electricity
connection is surprising," said an
environment activist.
The Times of India; July 5, 2015
(Edited)

promptly be attended. The public will not

have to call the landline of the concerned
sub-station to make their complaints."
Regarding non-functioning street lights
on bridges and the high-mast lamps in the
coastal areas, besides those at Navelim
and Margao, the power minister said that
this was the responsibility of the tourism
department. In view of staff shortage,
Naik cleared the request for additional 6070 junior engineers in the power
department as well as the request for
equipment.
The Times of India; July 5, 2015
(Edited)

AP domestic lighting scheme:

Bids to be opened by July 15
OUR BUREAU
Hyderabad: The bids for the second phase
of
Domestic
Efficient
Lighting
Programme (DELP) in AP will be opened
before July 15, thereby facilitating the
project imple-mentation. Phase one of
DELP covering 4 pilot districts in AP has
been completed wherein 56.5 lakh LED
bulbs were distributed. The second phase
will significantly broaden the scope of the
project. With the cost of LED bulbs
drastically coming down from 320 per
unit in a scheme taken up earlier to about
80 now, this is likely to boost the
energy conservation drive wherein it is
proposed to replace incandescent bulbs
with LED lights.
According to Energy Secretary Ajay Jain,
several global institutions like KFW have
agreed in principle to provide a load of up
to 1,500 crore to Energy Efficiency
Services Limited (EESL), a Central
Government enterprise, for taking up
energy efficiency measures in the country.
AP is likely to be a major beneficiary of
this loan as it takes up the second phase.
EESL is planning to invest about 5,000
crore over the next 5 years in energy
conservation and energy efficiency drive
in the country. The State expects to
secure funding from this corpus. With AP
taking up the issue of energy efficiency on
a mission mode, the successful implementation of phase one of the DELP is
likely to come up for consideration for
discussion in the Centre as this could

Palamu, Santhal Pargana to get

24X7 power by year end: CM
PIONEER NEWS SERVICE
Ranchi: CM Raghubar Das assured the
power-starved people of Palamu and
Garhwa region that they would get 24X7
electricity by the end of the year, while
residents of Santhal Pargana will get
regular electricity supply by the end of
July, 2015. Das said that the government
will ensure 24X7 electricity supply to the
whole state because one can neither dream
of Make in India nor Digital India
programme without power.
The Pioneer; July 4, 2015 (Edited)
No new electric line for hill areas
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Guwahati: To stop further encroachment
of hills surroundding the city, the Kamrup
(Metro) district administration asked
Assam Power Distribution Corp Ltd
(APDCL) to refrain from sanctioning new
electricity cone-ctions in the hill area.
Unscientific earth-cutting and filling in
the hills have destabilized natural earth
slopes, blocked natural drains, triggered
severe landslides and artificial floods and
caused waterlogging during monsoon.
"Hill-cutting degrades the environment
and ecological bala-nce. So, I have asked
APDCL not to provide new electric
connection in the hill areas," said DC M.
Angamuthu.
The applicants now have to obtain a NoC
from the district disaster management
47

serve as a model project, according to

State Energy Conservation Mission.
The Hindu Business Line; July 7, 2015

Hyderabad: The newly constituted

District Electricity Committee for
Hyderabad district conducted its first
meeting where committee members
complained about inadequate response
from field staff following power cuts. The
committee was constituted under the
Centres Deendhayal Upadhyaya Gram
Jyoth Yojana to oversee the status of
power project implementation and
identify avenues for new projects as
required by the district. In Hyderabad, the
committee was constituted under the
chairmanship
of
Hyderabad
MP
Asaduddin Owaisi. The Hyderabad
Collector is the convener.
The Hindu; July 5, 2015 (Edited)

Brighter homes at just Rs 10

State power firm to ink deal with

central JV for pocket- friendly LED
bulbs in capital, elsewhere
RUDRA BISWAS
Ranchi: Jharkhand Bijli Vitaran Nigam
Limited (JBVNL) has decided to make
LED bulbs, which cost nothing less than
450 in the market, available at a pocketfriendly rate of 10 to every household
in the 6 districts of Ranchi, East
Singhbhum, Dhanbad, Bokaro, Deoghar
and Hazaribagh by the end of next month.
Under this easy and unique conservation
scheme, which is borrowed from the
Centre's domestic efficient lighting
programme, every home in these 6
districts will be given 37-watt LED bulbs
in exchange for 3 incandescent or CFL
bulbs and an upfront payment of 30.
The 10-for-one bulbs will not just save
energy, but also cut down electricity bills
every month," said Rahul Purwar, MD of
JBVNL.
The Telegraph; July 6, 2015 (Edited)

Govt flips the switch to 20-year power

plan
SHREYA JAI
New Delhi: Shifting focus to power
transmission,
the
Narendra
Modi
government would soon launch a 20-year
plan for the sector to keep pace with
growing generation and its poll promise
of '24x7 power for all'. The plan, titled
'Perspective Transmission Plan for 20
Years' is being circulated to all states and
sector stakeholders for their feedback.
The total investment envisaged is 2.6
lakh crore during the 13th Plan.
According to the current draft, 1.6 lakh
crore investment in transmission would
come from states and the balance 1 lakh
crore from PGCIL.
Power ministry officials, however, said the
project allot-ment would undergo
changes, with PGCIL having overcapacity
projects and the government pushing for
more private investment in the sector.
Also, the Green Corridor project, which
entails an alternate transmission network
for renewable energy, is being revised,
keeping up with the plan to add 1,75,000
MW renewable power.
Transmission projects, totalling 1 lakh
crore, would be outbid in the coming six
months through a tariff-based competitive
bidding (TBCB), Minister for Coal, Power

German team pats discom

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Visakhapatnam:
Officials
of
KfW
Development Bank of Germany have
appreciated APEPDCL for the steps taken
on energy conservation. The team met
C&MD Revu Mutyala Raju and enquired
about the distribution of LED lamps by
EESL under its finance in select districts
of APEPDCL, their working and energy
savings. CGM B. Ramesh Prasad
explained the distribution of LED lamps
to consumers in APEPDCL jurisdiction.
He also spoke of the achievement of
distribution of solar-powered pump sets
under subsidy basis to farmers and its
contribution to energy conservation.
The Hindu; July 5, 2015 (Edited)
District Electricity Committee holds
first meet
STAFF REPORTER
48

and Renewable Energy Piyush Goyal, said

recently. The expected transmission
network by the end of the 12th Plan
period in 2017 will be 3,60,000 circuit
kilometres (Ckm) though the current
status is 37,140 Ckm.
The final draft of the transmission plan
would be ready by September and projects
would be bid accordingly. The plan was
prepared last year by the CEA along with
POSOCO and PGCIL. The government is
planning to increase the size of projects
and the scope of work in transmission to
prevent network congestion. Interstate
lines, with a capacity of around 56,000
MW, are being planned to be built by end
of the 13th Plan. The focus would be on
new technology such as HVDC and the
load forecast would be improved.
"The 5-year planning for transmission led
to congestion and confusion in the supply
network. States were not on board with
no forecast of load; demand and
transmission were not planned in tandem
with power generation as the latter was
de-licensed," said a senior power ministry
official. The ministry is also working on
the plan of a general network access
(GNA) for power transmission. "This is in
line with massive growth of power
generation and transmission falling back.
But for any plan around transmission,
states need to be on board. We are
discussing the plan threadbare with the
states," said a government official. GNA is
a kind of transmission network planning.
It aims at developing transmission system
such that available power can be
transmitted smoothly. It would not be
necessary to know in advance the
destination of supply for a power
generation plant. CERC, in its latest
report on congestion in the power supply,
had also advocated the same. "One of the
reasons for this constraint has also been
the fact that while in the last 10 years,
private sector capacity addition has led to
their share in the total generation capacity
rising to 35%, ahead of central sector
generation capacity, private sector
constitutes hardly 3% of the total capacity
in transmission.

Business Standard; July 7, 2015

(Edited)
India in talks with ADB, World Bank
for $2 bn loan for PGCIL
UTPAL BHASKAR
The World Bank (WB) and the Asian
Development Bank (ADB) are in talks
with the Indian government for providing
a loan of around $2 billion to PGCIL. In
addition, the transmission utility is also
evaluating the prospects of raising $500
million
through
global
rupeedenominated bonds. The loan from WB
and ADB, if it comes through, will boost
Indias green energy efforts and enable
PGCIL to set up transmission corridors
for evacuating solar and wind power.
LiveMint; July 3, 2015 (Edited)
PGCIL approves plan for energy
corridors
New Delhi: PGCIL said its board has
approved 2,247.37 crore investment
plan for the third part of the inter-state
electricity transmission project.
The Economic Times; July 7, 2015
(Edited)
India starts work on green power
corridors

PGCIL plans to construct transmission

links
for 10,000MW solar capacity
UTPAL BHASKAR
New Delhi: Faced with an ambitious
green energy target of 175,000 MW by
2022, India has started work to set up
transmission corridors to supply green
power across the national grid. PGCIL
plans to construct transmission links for
10,000 MW solar capacity that may
involve an investment of about 9,000
crore. Of the total 100,000 MW solar
power capacity planned, 20,000 MW will
come from solar parks and 40,000 MW
each from roof-top and distributed
generation projects. The government
plans to set up 25 such solar parks. India
has around 300 days of sunshine per year.
Given the nature of solar power, setting
up the transmission system is a challenge.
49

PGCIL plans to build the inter-state

transmission system for nine such solar
parks, said a government official.
Stability of the power grid will be
important in the transmission of green
energy as it will have to factor in the
variation in solar and wind energy
generated. A grid collapse would mean
states that draw power from a particular
network face a blackout. In 2012, such a
grid failure in India led to the largest
known outage in world history, affecting
620 million people. On 31 July 2012, the
northern grid collapsed, and on 1 August,
the northern, eastern and north-eastern
grids failed.
PGCIL operates around 113,587 circuit
km of trans-mission lines and plans to
spend 1 trillion to increase Indias
inter-regional power transfer capacity
from 46,450 MW to 72,250 MW by 2017.
The capital expen-diture planned by
PGCIL for the current year is 32,500
crore. An earlier target to install
20,000MW of solar energy capacity by
2022 was raised fivefold to 100,000 MW.
Getting this quantum of solar and wind
power on the grid would require
forecasting the generation and setting up
of renewable energy management centres
in the states and at the levels of state load
dispatch centres, regional load dispatch
centres and national load dispatch centre,
said another PGCIL executive.
The transmission corridors planned by
PGCIL are in addition to the green
energy corridors project under IndoGerman
Bilateral
Development
Cooperation Progra-mme for which
German development bank KfW has
decided to provide up to 1 billion
(around 7,030 crore) as concessional
loans. A PGCIL spokesperson confirmed
the development and said, The
transmission of different stages are being
finalized. The emphasis on solar and
wind power is also expected to strengthen
Indias standing at global climate change
negotiations that culminate in a summit in
Paris in December.
LiveMint; July 7, 2015 (Edited)

Sector majors shy away from

bidding for transmission projects
SHREYA JAI
New Delhi: Three companies pulled out of

400-crore
auction
for
the
Maheshwaram
power
transmission
project. This is the second time in a week
that transmission companies did not bid
for projects despite qualifying. The
qualified bidders for the Maheshwaram
project were state-owned PGCIL, Essel
Infra,
Sterlite
Grid,
Kalpataru
Transmission, CLP India and a
consortium of Tata Power and Tata
Realty. Of these, only Sterlite, Power
Grid and Kalpataru bid. L&T pulled out of
auctions for the 823 crore Chhattisgarh
A, 1,976 crore Chhattisgarh B and
863 crore Sipat transmission projects.
European major Isolux also did not bid
for 2 of 3 projects. Jindal Power, too, had
qualified for 2 projects but did not bid for
either.

The winners of the Chhatisgarh A and B

projects are likely to be named by PFC
next Tuesday. The investment expec-ted
on these 4 lines is 4,000 crore. This was
the first tranche of projects to go under
the hammer after Power Minister Piyush
Goyal said the government would
increase transmission capacity to fulfill
the NDAs promise of universal,
uninterrupted electricity. This was also
the second major investment sought from
the private sector after bidding for 2
UMPPs failed last year. Stalled projects
are still a major contributor to delayed
revenue and lower profitability for Indian
companies. Most industrial capacities are
underutilised due to lack of demand, said
Rathin Basu, country president, Alstom
India & South Asia.
Business Standard; July 4, 2015
(Edited)
50

impediment for power utilities to set up

new sub-stations. More than 70 substations are pending due to scarcity of
land in Hyderabad and surrounding areas.
There are about 38 lakh electricity
connections in Greater Hyderabad limits
and about 50 MU of power is being
consumed on an average per month. To
cater to this demand there are about 220,
33/11 KV sub-stations in operation.
Considering the present load and growth
in future demand, at least 100 new substations are needed in the Greater
Hyderabad limits, opines an official from
Telangana Southern Power Distribution
Company Ltd (TSPDCL). TSPDCL has
decided to construct new sub-stations in
Hyderabad and sent a representation to
Hyderabad district authorities to provide
land. To do away with practical
difficulties and delays, TSPDCL has put
the onus of acquiring land on the district
administration.
The New Indian Express; July 9, 2015
(Edited)

L&T wins 1,885 cr worth contracts

in June
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi: L&T said its construction arm
has won 1,885 crore worth contracts in
June in the domestic and international
markets. The Power Transmission and
Distribution
Business
of
L&T
Construction has won orders worth
1,885 crore in the domestic and
international markets in June 2015, the
infrastructure major said. On the domestic
front, a major EPC order was received
from Odisha Power Transmission
Corporation Ltd, it said. The project
involves installing various 33/11 kV air
insulated substations and associated lines
with complete facilities for the Phase II of
Odisha Distribution System Strengthening Projects. All major international
orders were received from the Middle
East, the company said.
The Financial Express; July 2, 2015
(Edited)

India to export 500 Mw power to

Bangladesh through SAARC Grid soon:
POSOCO
BS REPORTER
New Delhi: Indias grid manager
POSOCO is confident the country would
begin to export an additional power to an
extent of 500 MW to Bangladesh as soon
as the work on SAARC grid is
accomplished in the next one year. We
could also draw considerably higher
volumes of hydropower from nations such
as Bhutan and Nepal, said V.K. Agrawal,
executive director, National Load
Despatch Centre at POSOCO.
The Indian government finalised a
consensus over inter-country grid
connecting the SAARC countries, which
was pending for 4 years, in a meeting held
with represent-tatives in the annual
SAARC energy ministers meeting in
Delhi in October 2014. In view of the
deepening and thickening bilateral
relations between India and Bangladesh
following conclusion of the recent summit
level talks between prime ministers of the

24 new grid substations in the offing

Question hour in Legislative Assembly

Itanagar: Twenty four more new grid
sub-stations and 1917 km of grid lines are
coming up under the compre-hensive
scheme
of
transmission
being
implemented by PGCIL. This was
informed in the Legislative Assembly
today. While responding to the star
question from
MLA Tumke Bagra,
Power Minister Tanga Byaling informed
the house that the Govt had issued order
on March 17 last with a sole purpose of
placing officers for O&M of the State Grid
Systems and grid sub-stations, which are
located at Daporijo, Aalo, Pasighat,
Deomali,
Itanagar,
Naharlagun,
Bhalukpong and Khuppi.
The Assam Tribune; July 8, 2015
(Edited)
Land shortage for sub-stations hits
supply
J. DEEPTI NANDAN REDDY
Hyderabad:
Non-availability
of
government land is beco-ming a major
51

ready to conduct feasibility study on ecocity and transportation systems in AP.

Japan Research Institute is a subsidiary of
SMBC.
Toshiba has indicated its interest to work
in optimising power management and to
partner in energy research and the
proposed Energy University. Toshio
Masaki, Deputy President of Toshiba, was
asked to take up a pilot project in Vizag
on the lines of Fuji Electric in Vijayawada.
A MoU was signed between AP
Technology Services Ltd and National
Electronics Corp (NEC).
The Hindu Business Line; July 9, 2015

2 countries, a decision has been taken to

supply additional 500 MW of gas-fed
electricity to Bangladesh, said Agrawal.
India is already exporting 500 MW of
power to Bangladesh. Agarwal said the
government has recently concluded that
another 500 MW power supply be
restored to Bangladesh with completion of
SAARC grid, which is likely to take a
year. The SAARC grid, which would
connect India with its neighboring
countries with cross-border transmission
network, is currently in the evolution
phase.
India-Bhutan, India-Nepal and IndiaBangladesh grids are interconnected and
cross-border trade in bilateral mode is
already taking place. India-Sri-Lanka
asynchronous interconnection is under
process. With regard to India-Pakistan, a
suitable cross-border link is being
considered.
Business Standard; July 9, 2015
(Edited)

Andhra inks MoUs with Japans

Mizuho Bank
B. KRISHNA MOHAN
AP has inked MoUs with Mizuho Bank,
where the latter will facilitate investments
from Japanese companies in AP. Mizuho,
the second largest bank in Japan, intends
to facilitate investment activities in India
and Japan. Sunrise AP, an AP government
organisation and Mizuho will reach out to
companies in Japan that are interested in
pursuing business opportunities in India.
AP CM N. Chandrababu Naidu met
Mizuho Bank managing executive officer
and head of international banking unit,
Tatsufumi Sakai. Naidu asked Mizuho
Bank to set up its India headquarters in
Amaravati.
Soft Bank founder and CEO Masayoshi
Son, who had met Naidu at Hyderabad
last month, said it was ready to set up a 20
GW solar power plant in AP. It would
manufacture solar panels under the make
in India initiative in AP. Soft Bank would
sponsor scholarships to select students
willing to specialise in solar power
engineering. Son said he would make a
donation in his personal capacity to the
proposed Renewable Energy University
in AP.
Naidu also met officials of the ministry of
economy, trade and industry (METI),
which evinced interest in equity
participation in capital development and
management.
It
offered
financial
assistance for APs metro rail project if

AP woos Honda to set up a plant,

Toshiba to work on energy sector

Chandrababu Naidu touring Japan

OUR BUREAU
Hyderabad, July 8: AP CM N.
Chandrababu Naidu invited Japanese
corporations such as Toshiba, Honda and
JGC to set up their manufacturing units in
the State and also share their expertise in
infrastructure development. On his third
day tour of Japan, Naidu and his
delegation signed a MoU with NEC and
also secured commitment from some of
the Japanese corporations such as JRC for
projects in the State. The CM invited
Shinji Aoyama, COO of Honda Motor to
set up a plant in AP. JGC Corp expressed
interest in setting up a refinery, cracker
unit and petrochemical corridor in AP.
At a meeting with Sumitomo Mitsui
Banking Corporation (SMBC), Senior
Advisor Fumio Hoshi informed the CM
that Japan Research Institute (JRI) is
52

investigation is expected to conclude in

mid-July.
Shares of Toshiba, whose businesses
range from laptop computers to nuclear
power plants, have fallen 17% since the
company
disclosed
the
internal
investigation in early April. The current
accounting investigation is Toshibas
second in less than 2 years. In October
2013, it ann-ounced that it found its
medical subsidiary, Toshiba Medi-cal
information Systems, had overstated
results for several years. Previous
accounting investigations in Japan have
included camera and medical equipment
maker Olympus Corps 13-year cover-up
of $1.7 billion in losses. The Financial
Express; July 5, 2015 (Edited)

there was a request from the government

of India.
METI officials said it would seek the
participation of New Energy and
Industrial Technology Development
Organisation's (NEDO), which will
present a feasibility report and assist
Sumitomo
Corporation
in
the
Srikakulams power project. Naidu
emphasised on a task force to
institutionalise the relationship with
Japan. Naidu has also asked Bank of
Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ to set up foreign
exchange operations in Amaravati.
Financial Chronicle; July 8, 2015
(Edited)
Toshiba accounting errors
may be over $800 mn
REUTERS
Tokyo: Toshiba Corporation may need to
mark down past earnings by over 100
billion yen ($814 million), more than
double earlier estimates, after an ongoing
investigation into past accounting
practices found more irregularities, a
source familiar with the matter said. The
Nikkei busi-ness daily reported earlier the
newly discovered errors, related to
computer parts procurement, could see an
earnings mark down of around 150 billion
yen. Company officials were not
immediately available for comment.
The industrial conglomerate has not been
able to close its books for the year that
ended in March while a third-party
committee reviews its past bookkeeping
practices in a probe prompted by
regulators. It has also skipped its year-end
dividend
to
shareholders.
The
investigation had previously found
inappropriate bookkeeping in areas such
as highway electronic toll collection
systems,
power
meters
and
semiconductors likely led to profits being
overstated by nearly 55 billion yen in
recent years.
The company has said irregularities found
so far included not booking appropriate
losses and expenses, as well as
underestimating material costs. The

Infra companies face tough time

as cash flow dries up
BS REPORTER
Mumbai: UBS has flagged the falling
financial metrics of Jaypee, Essar, GMR,
GVK, Lanco and Abhijeet business groups
and said banks had increased their
exposure to them despite a deterioration
in their cash flow and ability to service
debt over the last few years.
A UBS report said 15-20% of the
companies analysed were categorised as
having non-performing loans or had their
debt restructured. Total loan approvals
have increased by 85% since 2011-12 for
the banks under our coverage, including
non-fund based exposure. While the
strong growth could be partly driven by
disbursements to already approved loans,
banks also seem to be supporting some
accounts, leading to a stretched working
capital cycle, the report pointed out.
The 6 groups identified by UBS as having
stressed loans have already taken steps to
reduce their debt. While Jaypee sold its
cement and power plants, Essar sold its
slurry pipeline and oxygen plant apart
from converting local loans to dollardenominated ones. Essar Steel plans to
sell assets worth 12,000 crore in 201516.
GMR Infrastructure is talking to its
banks to take advantage of the 5/25
53

and Punjab National Bank had large

exposures. The total debt of the group is
93,600 crore, up from 75,800 crore a
year ago. A senior Essar executive said
the group had taken steps to cut its debt,
including a plan to sell a 49% stake in
Essar Oil and its ports.
On Jaypee, UBS said ICICI Bank, SBI,
Axis Bank and Yes Bank had increased
their loan approvals by 250% in the last 3
years even as the groups debt rose to an
alarming 96,200 crore. The group sold
its power plants to the JSW Group for
12,000 crore in 2014-15 and its cement
units in Gujarat and MP to Ultratech.
UBS said it analysed data of the banks
filings with the Registrar of Companies.
But it said these documents might not
accurately represent the actual loan
exposure of banks to companies as they do
not capture partial repayments or
undisbursed money and include non-fund
based facilities. UBS adjusted the data for
repayments wherever information was
available.
Business Standard; July 9, 2015
(Edited)

scheme to restructure its debt. The GVK

group has put plans to develop an
expensive coal mine in Australia in deep
freeze while Lanco sold its Udupi power
plant to the Adani group for 6,000
crore. The 5/25 scheme increases the
tenure of a loan to 25 years with an option
to refinance the loan in 5 years.
UBS said these groups would have to sell
more assets to support their interest and
principal
repayments.
A
slow-ing
economy, ambitious projects, and land
acquisition delays are the main reasons
why many projects of these groups failed
to take off or are stuck midway.
On GMR Infrastructure, UBS said the
companys console-dated debt had
increased from 21,200 crore in 2010-11
to 46,000 crore in first half of 2014-15,
and its debt-equity ratio had climbed from
1.9 to 5.5. Its interest coverage ratio is
low at 0.7. ICICI Bank and Yes Bank have
increased their exposure to the group
since 2011-12.
UBS said the consolidated debt of GVK
Power and Infrastructure had increased
from 5,500 crore in 2010-11 to
22,300 crore by 2014-15, its debt-equity
ratio from 1.5 to 10.7, and as a result its
interest coverage ratio was low at 0.6.
UBS analysed data for 17 companies in
the GVK group, with a total exposure of
11,800 crore, and said Axis Bank and
Infrastructure Development Finance had
the highest exposures to the group.
On Lanco, UBS said its total consolidated
debt increased from 16,700 crore in
2010-11 to 38,000 crore in the first 9
months of 2014-15, and its debt-equity
ratio had risen from 3.3 to 14.1 to over the
period. Its cash interest coverage ratio is
also low at 0.8. But with the sale of its
Udupi plant, Lanco will be able to reduce
its debt to around 32,000 crore. UBS
analysed data for 8 com-panies in the
Lanco group with a total exposure of
26,100 crore and found Punjab National
Bank, ICICI Bank and REC had the
highest exposures.
UBS also analysed 11 Essar group
companies, excluding Essar Oil and Essar
Power (Salaya), and said ICICI Bank, SBI

Lanco mulls selling power business

stake
BLOOMBERG
New Delhi: Lanco
Infratech,
is
considering selling
part
of
its
generation
business to cut
debt
amid
4
straight years of
losses.
The
company expects
to raise 4,000
crore ($630 million) in 2-3 years by either
taking the unit public or roping in a
strategic partner, said T. Adi Babu, COO,
finance. Lanco will also sell its Australian
coal mine and its toll-road business in
India when it gets an acceptable price, he
said. Lanco, whose debt currently stands
at about 37,000 crore, has remained
unprofitable for the past 4 years, weighed
down by interest costs. Reviving the
54

Group seeking loan refinance for Sasan

UMPP as well

company's finances will depend on how

soon PM Modi's government restarts
power, road and other public works
projects halted by land acquisitions and
environ-mental delays to fulfill pledges
that helped him win elections.
"We'd like to capitalise on the power
business when all our under-construction
projects are ready," Babu said. "We also
hope by that time coal availability for our
plants will improve and demand for power
would have picked up." Lanco has a
generation capacity of 3,450 MW, with
4,636 MW under construction, according
to a June presentation. The company,
based in Gurgaon, raised 6,300 crore in
April by selling a 1,200 MW power plant
to Adani Power. Lanco shares rose 1.2%
to 4.10 at the close in Mumbai, their
first increase in seven trading days. The
stock has declined 32 % this year,
compared with a 2.2% gain in the
benchmark S&P BSE Sensex.
A 50% decline in the price of coal since
Lanco bought the Australian mine in
December 2010 has rendered the asset
unviable. Located at Collie in Western
Australia, Griffin Coal Mining has
reserves of 1.1 billion metric tonne. While
Lanco has deferred an expansion plan at
the mine, it is maintaining production to
meet contractual obligations to customers,
Babu said. "There are buyers for the roads
business and the Australian coal mine, but
the prices being offered are too low," he
said. "The price being offered for the
roads business is 100 crore, while the
book value is 750 crore."
Lanco is also approaching lenders to
refinance debt on some operational power
plants and is counting on lower
borrowing costs to shore up its finances.
The company's borrowing costs rose
almost 11% in the year ended March,
dragging down earnings. Even after 3
reductions, India's key rate at 7.25 % is
among the highest in Asia.
Business Standard; July 4, 2015
(Edited)
Reliance Power gets
5/25 relief for 2 thermal projects

PRANAV NAMBIAR & PALLAVI AIL

Mumbai: Reliance Power has refinanced 2
thermal power projects - Butibori and
Rosa - under the RBIs 5/25 scheme with
additional loans of about 3,500 crore
provided by SBI, Axis Bank, Vijaya Bank
and Bank of Maharashtra. Documents
show the 600 MW Butibori project in
Maharashtra got an additional 2,000
crore from these lenders, while the 1,200
MW Rosa project in UP secured refinance
of 1,500 crore from SBI.
Banks had recently refinanced another
ADAG
group
company,
Reliance
Infrastructure, for its Mumbai metro rail
project. A senior official in Reliance
Infrastructure
confirmed
that
the
company is also looking to refinance loans
to its 3,960 MW UMPP located in Sasan,
MP. If we dont get the loan refinanced,
we will need to make high returns in the
first 10 years to be able to pay off the loan
and that is not possible as these projects
have long gestation periods, the official
said. The Sasan UMPP was executed at a
cost of 27,000 crore with the last unit of
the plant commissioned almost a year
before its projected zero date.
Reliance Power is estimated to have
incurred a capex of 3,500 crore in
FY15, with net debt rising to 28,749
crore from 27,200 crore a year earlier.
Analysts have drawn attention to the
sharp increase in receivables at 2,900
crore, the equivalent of 5 months of sales.
The com-pany reported revenues of
7,202 crore, up 30% over the previous
year, and a net profit of 1,028 crore.
Revenues from the Butibori project were
estimated at 1,754 crore in FY15 while
profit was pegged at 266 crore.
Outstanding debt at the end of March
2015 was 2,943 crore. The unit
operated at a PLF of 81.3%. The Rosa
plant was developed in 2 stages at an
investment of 6,100 crore. Emkay
Research notes the project reported a net
profit of 571 crore in FY15 on revenues
of 4,616 crore. At the end of March
55

2015, the outstanding debt amounted to

3,500 crore.
The Financial Express; July 3, 2015
(Edited)

rest comes from sales made under longterm agreements that provide greater
revenue certainty. The precarious
financial position of state distribution
utilities, however, remains a concern.
Impacted by weak demand from
distribution utilities, JSW Energy had
reported a fall in sales revenue in 2013-14.
Higher power sales the next year,
however, helped the company grow
revenues 7.7 %. JSW Energy seems to be
well placed on the fuel front too. It runs
its Barmer plant on lignite from the
Kapurdi mines operated by Barmer
Lignite Mining Company (BLMC), its JV
with the Rajasthan government.
During 2014-15, JSW Energy reported a
year-on-year 19 % increase in power
production from its 3 plants to 20,307
MW. Greater availability of lignite,
thanks to the governments approval for
expansion of capacity of the Kapurdi
mines, helped. The plant, which accounts
for a third of JSW Energys operational
capacity, saw its PLF go up from 68% in
2013-14 to 78% last fiscal. This could go
up further once the BLMC-run Jalipa
mines turn operational in 2015-16. JSW
Energy has also benefitted from the
significant cool-off in international coal
prices. Its plants at Vijayanagar and
Ratnagiri run on imported coal. With the
downtrend in global coal prices unlikely
to reverse soon, it should remain in a
sweet spot.
In 2014-15, JSW Energys net profit rose
79% year-on-year to 1,350 crore. Its
operating profit increased 12% to 3,854
crore. Higher power sales (despite lower
realisations) and cheaper coal improved
operational
profitability.
Lower
exceptional loss, primarily due to the
companys move towards complete
hedging of its foreign currency exposure
to buyers credit, boosted net profit. Also,
JSW Energys healthy balance sheet has
improved. Its consolidated debt-to-equity
ratio came down to 1.1 times as on March
2015 from 1.4 times a year ago.
The Hindu Business Line; July 6, 2015
(Edited)

Packed with power

JSW Energy improved its interest

coverage to 2.7 times in 2014-15 from
2.2 times in 2013-14
MAULIK MADHU
The stock of power producer JSW Energy
has gained 16% since our buy
recommendation in November. Investors
can still consider buying the stock, which
is reasonably priced. At 95, it discounts
its trailing 12-month earnings by 12
times, lower than its 5-year average
valuation of 17 times. The stock offers
potential for further upside. One, the
company is expanding its generation
capacity. Next, unlike many other private
power producers, JSW Energy has a
strong balance sheet with manageable
debt levels.
JSW Energy operates a thermal power
generation capa-city of 3,140 MW,
comprising plants at Ratnagiri in
Maharashtra, Barmer in Rajasthan and
Vijayanagar in Karnataka. It is now set to
expand capacity and diversify into hydro
power too. In November 2014, it signed
an agreement with Jaiprakash Power
Ventures to acquire the companys 2
operational hydroelectric power projects the 300 MW Baspa II and the 1,091 MW
Karcham Wangtoo in HP - for a base
enterprise value of 9,700 crore. While
the acquisition, which is expected to be
completed in 2015-16 does not appear
cheap, the final purchase price is
negotiable and could be lower. Apart from
this, JSW Energy is also setting up the
240 MW Kutehr hydroelectric project, for
which land acquisition is underway.
JSW Energy sells power both under longterm PPAs and in the merchant market.
The latter exposes it to tariff volatility
and buyer uncertainty. But the share of
merchant sales has been declining
consistently over the past few years - from
64% of the companys power sales in
2011-12, it has fallen to 44% now. The
56

turbines with a total rated output of 54.45

MW from 4 wind farms in France.
Senvion will also be in charge of full
maintenance of the wind farm for 15
years.
DNA; July 4, 2015 (Edited)

Govt to sell stake in Oil India,

NTPC, 3 other PSUs
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi: The government will sell a
minority stake in NTPC, Oil India and 3
other PSUs as part of its disinvest-ment
drive. The Department of Disinvestment
today sought bids to appoint legal
advisors for sale of stake in 5 PSUs
through an offer for sale (OFS), besides a
follow on offer of the CPSE Exchange
Traded Fund. At current market prices,
the stake sale in the 5 PSUs could fetch
the exchequer around 11,500 crore. The
disinvestment department plans to sell
15% stake in Hindustan Copper Ltd, 10%
each in Oil India and Engineers India and
5% each in NTPC and Bharat Electronics
Ltd. For the current fiscal, the
government has set a target of raising
69,500 crore through disinvestment. Of
this, 41,000 crore would come from sale
of minority stake and 28,500 crore from
strategic stake sale.
Financial Chronicle; July 3, 2015
(Edited)

Warburg Pincus in talks to Buy 25% in

L&T Fin
Deal size likely to be about . 3,500 cr;

move seen as PE fund's plan to create

financial services portfolio in India
DEVINA SENGUPTA & BAIJU
KALESH
Mumbai: American private equity fund
Warburg Pincus is in talks to purchase at
least one-fourth of financial services firm
L&T Finance Holdings, people familiar
with the development said. Both
Warburg Pincus and L&T Finance, which
have agreed to a deal up to 25% stake, are
now negotiating on the price, one said.
The move is seen as a part of Warburg
Pincus' plan to create a financial services
portfolio in India. L&T Finance, owned by
India's
largest
engineering
and
constructions firm L&T, has pitched for a
deal price of 83 per share, the sources
said. The PE fund has yet to respond to
this offer. The offer price translates to a
deal size of 3,574 crore.
The Economic Times; July 7, 2015
(Edited)

RBI restricts foreign investors

to buy shares in Petronet LNG
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
Mumbai: The RBI said foreign investors
can pick up fresh stake in Petronet LNG
only after taking prior approval as
overseas shareholding has reached
permissible limit in the company. The
foreign shareholding through Foreign
Institutional Investors (FIIs)/Registered
Foreign Portfolios Investors (RFPIs) in
Petronet LNG Ltd has reached the
trigger limit, RBI said in a notification
today. For the quarter ended June 30,
foreign shareholding in the company was
at 22.80%.
Financial Chronicle; July 3, 2015
(Edited)

Singareni to start drilling at Bayyaram

RAVI RANJAN PRASAD
Singareni Collieries will undertake
exploration drilling at Bayyaram in
Khammam district. The extracted ore will
be made available to the company that
comes forward to set up a steel factory
here. The drilling of holes is part of the
exercise to make a preliminary report for
making the quality and quantity
assessment of iron ore. This also marks
SCCLs diversification into mining of iron
ore and other minerals. This apart, power
generation - thermal, wind and solar explosive manufacturing, coal washing,
processing of over burden, underground
coal gasification, surface coal gasification

Suzlon arm Senvion, ENERTRAG

in pact for 27 turbines in France
Senvion SE, an arm of Suzlon Group,
signed a contract with European
renewable energy company ENERTAG
for the supply and installation of 27 wind
57

and coal bed methane are the other

diversification activities for Singareni.
Financial Chronicle; July 7, 2015
(Edited)

Census reveals grim picture of Bharat

One out of 3 families landless;

less than 5% rural households pay IT

Suzlon Energy set to win back 50%

mkt share in wind power biz

OUR BUREAU
New Delhi: Reiterating the lopsided India
story, the Socio Economic and Caste
Census of rural areas revealed that 1 out
of 3 families is landless, less than 5% of
the rural households pay income tax, but
over 68% have mobile phones. The result
of the first such Census in independent
India - the last one was conducted in 1932
- did not include caste-specific data
despite the title saying so. I am sure that
with the enormity of schemes and the
reach that all governments have, this
document will form the basis of helping us
to target groups to support in terms of
policy planning, said Finance Minister
Arun Jaitley, while releasing the report in
the presence of Rural Develop-ment
Minister Chaudhry Birender Singh. The
paperless Census was carried out in all
640 districts of the country with the help
of a handheld device.
It said that of the total 24.39 crore
households in the country, 17.91 crore are
in rural areas. Of the rural households,
18.46% belong to a Scheduled Caste and
10.97% to a Schedule Tribe while 68.5 %
belong to other categories. Interestingly,
over 36.5 lakh families (a little over 2%)
belong to no caste or tribe category.
Five States with a high percentage of
rural SC households are Punjab, WB, TN,
HP and UP. On sources of income, the
Census says 5% of the households draw
government salaries, over 3.57% relied on
the private sector, and little over 1% of
households on public sector enterprises.
However, the bad news is that over 6.85
crore households (38.27%) hold no land,
deriving a major part of their income from
casual manual labour. Also, the number of
households with destitutes or those living
on alms is over 6.68 lakh; as many as 4.08
lakh households rely on rag-picking.

Potential turnaround story where it

has been a market leader due strong
EPC and O&M capability
NOMURA
Suzlon Energy (SUEL) is a potential
turnaround story in the emerging wind
power sector, where it has traditionally
been a market leader due to its strong
end-to-end EPC and O&M capability.
From a position of strength, SUEL has
gone through multiple crises over the past
5 years including debt default. However,
it has since taken corrective steps to
substantially repair its balance sheet by
selling off its German offshore wind arm,
Senvion (formerly REpower), for 1
billion and issuing fresh equity worth
1,800 crore to Dilip Shanghvi &
Associates (DSA) a promoter for Sun
Pharma.
After the financial restructuring and
Senvion sell-off, SUEL is now an India
pure play set to refocus on new order wins
and execution, and well placed to win
back 50% market share in the domestic
wind equipment market. Re-introduction
of wind power incentives and supportive
policy aimed at meeting the governments
ambitious wind energy target of 60 GW
should help to drive demand for wind
equipment.
The Financial Express; July 9, 2015
(Edited)
Like CIL, PSUs can deliver
on par with TCS, Infy: Min
Better vision and leadership can help
state-owned firms to perform on par with
top private players like Infosys, Wipro
and TCS as has happened with CIL which
registered 12% spurt in output, coal
minister Piyush Goyal said.
The Hindustan Times; July 9, 2015
(Edited)
58

While for almost two-thirds of the rural

households the top earning member got
less than 5,000 a month, in over 1.48
crore (8.29%) households, the top earner
brought home more than 10,000 a
month. The Census also gave a glimpse of
the rural market, with 1 out of every 5
families owning a motorised vehicle
(two/three/ four-wheeler or a fishing
boat).
On the use of the report, Jaitley said it
will help assess who are the ones who
have qualitatively moved up in terms of
quality of life and who are the ones in
terms of geographical regions, social
groupings which need to be targeted.
Rural Development Minister Birender
Singh said: The data are an opportunity
to make evidence-based selection,
prioritisation and targeting of benefitciaries in different programmes. The
Rural Development Ministry has decided
to use SECC data in all programmes.
The Hindu Business Line; July 4, 2015
(Edited)

CPRI's Nagpur unit had 4 laboratories,

which used to carry out a number of
studies on thermal power generation.
Quality of raw coal as well as washed coal
was tested here. Research was carried out
to improve washing of coal. UN had given
grant to the Nagpur unit to study coal
burning in depth. The erstwhile MSEB
had funded the construction of an alumina
extraction plant. Coal fly-ash contains
26% alumina. Aluminium is extracted
from it.
The land has been given on lease for 30
years at a nominal annual rent of 1. The
lease will be renewed at the request of
CPRI. CPRI will have to start
construction within 3 years of getting
possession of land. The institute will have
to give permanent 20% concession in
training engineers of state governmentrun power companies.
The Times of India; July 3, 2015
(Edited)

Power research unit given land

ASHISH
ROY,
TIMES
NEWS
NETWORK
Nagpur: The city need not lose the branch
of Central Power Research Institute
(CPRI). The state government has finally
given land to it at Wardha Road. A fullfledged thermal research unit of CPRI,
having its head office in Bengaluru, used
to function near Koradi until 2009 when
Mahagenco acquired the land for its
Koradi expansion project. Since then, it
has been just existing with a skeletal staff
in a Mahagenco residential quarter.
Sources in power sector said that CPRI
bosses had almost planned to shift the
Nagpur unit to Vadodara when the state
government issued the government
resolution for the 49.08 hectare land at
Dhuti on Wardha Road. The CongressNCP government had not shown any
initiative in retaining the unit here. The
CPRI bosses had tried hard to get
alternate land but they were only made to
run from pillar to post. After some
months, they had given up.

Consultants with strong political ties

in Australia and ex-govt executives
have been roped in, say media reports

Adani hires lobbyists to push Oz mine

project

RACHITA PRASAD
Mumbai: The Adani Group has reportedly
hired influen-tial figures from both sides
of the political spectrum in Australia to
convince the government of the benefits
its $7 billion Carmichael mine project and
secure necessary approvals. According to
Australia's The Sydney Morning Herald,
working for Adani are several staffers,
lobbyists and consultants with strong ties
to Labor, Liberal and National parties.
The report said Adani has hired people
who have previously worked in
Queensland government in areas with
oversight of elements of the project.
The Sydney Morning Herald report said
Adani's key lobbying firm is Next Level
Strategic Services, led by David Moore
and Cameron Milner. Moore was the chief
of staff for former deputy premier Jeff
Seeney when he was opposition leader for
the Liberal National Party of Queensland,
and was a chief of staff during the Howard
59

government for MP Mal Brough. Seeney

and his former department of State
Development,
Infrastructure
and
Planning were under scanner after
documents showed that they went ahead
with a proposal to assist Adani with
financing for a rail line to coal terminals
at Abbot Point. The report lists former
government executives been hired by
Adani. ET could not reach Adani's
officials in Australia for an immediate
response.
The Economic Times; July 4, 2015
(Edited)

Coal scam: Plea for probe into hawala

transactions and diversion of coal
fe BUREAU
New Delhi: The Supreme Court sought
responses from CBI and the Enforcement
Directorate as to whether it should
investigate alleged diversion of coal from
captive coal blocks allotted to Reliance
ADAGs Sasan UMPP in MP and also
probe the Aditya Birla Groups alleged
hawala transactions that cropped up
during coal scam investigations. A special
bench headed by Justice Madan B. Lokur,
which is monitoring the probe in the coal
allocation scam, issued notice to the CBI
and ED on both.
The Financial Express; July 7, 2015
(Edited)

Govt: No wrongdoing in
land allotment to Essar Power
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Gandhinagar:
Strongly
rejecting
Congress'
allegations
of
state
government's collusion with Essar
Power Gujarat Ltd (EGPL) for forcibly
acquiring farmland near Vadinar, the
revenue ministry said that certain
individuals are unnecessarily trying to
rake up controversy and stall the coal
corridor project. In a statement, the
revenue department said that out of the
total 23,81,138 sq m required for the coal
corridor, EGPL had legally purchased
20,90,567 sq m (87.79%) from the farmers.
The company has acquired 1,66,126 sq m
as per land acquisition rules and the
government has allot ted 1,24,445 sq m
for which EGPL has paid the full amount.
Giving details, the revenue department
said that the company required 238.11
hectare land of which they purchased
209.05 ha from the farmers and acquired
16.61 as per land acquisition rules.
EGPL also paid the government 17.18
crore for 12.44 ha land that was allotted
to the company. EGPL got the possession
of this land on May 15. EPGL is building
a nearly 12 km coal corridor to reduce the
transportation cost of fuel. Presently,
imported coal is transported from Bedi
port, 45 km away, by dumpers to the
power plant.
The Times of India; July 6, 2015
(Edited)

Coal scam: Court allows CBI's plea

to place fresh documents
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
New Delhi: A special court has allowed a
plea filed by CBI seeking its permission to
place on record some fresh documents and
adding names of 6 more witnesses in a
coal block allocation case involving Delhibased Rathi Steel and Power Limited
(RSPL) and its 3 officials. The agency had
moved an application before Special CBI
Judge Bharat Parashar. While allowing
CBIs plea, the judge said, At the outset, I
may state that undoubtedly while filing
the charge sheet CBI ought to have been
careful in placing on record all the
relevant and relied upon documents and
for also mentioning the names of all
witnesses in the list of witnesses. The
court had earlier put on trial RSPL and its
three top officials - MD Pradeep Rathi,
CEO Udit Rathi and AGM Kushal
Aggarwal - for alleged offences of
cheating and criminal conspiracy. The
case pertains to alleged irregularities in
allocation of Kesla North coal block in
Chhattisgarh to RSPL.
Business Standard; July 5, 2015
(Edited)
Coal scam: CBI wonders at
CoalMin, DoPT queries
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
60

New Delhi: CBI told a special court that

it was beyond comprehension as to why
the coal ministry or department of
personnel and training were seeking
documents from them on the sanction
issue in coal scam cases which may tilt
the balance in favour of the accused.
Noting that it has already provided all
relevant records, CBI said they have
received a letter on June 11 from DoPT
with reference to 5 cases in which
documents were sent to them in
pursuance to the court's directions for
considering according of sanction to try 2
retired public servants, K.S. Kropha and
K.C. Samria, for their alleged roles in coal
scam cases.
The court was hearing a coal scam case
involving Nagpur- based Grace Industries
(GIL) and others. The court had earlier
directed central bureau of investigation to
place records of the case before the
competent authority so that they could
consider according sanction to prosecute
Kropha, former joint secretary in coal
ministry, and Vishwas Sawakhande, then
director of directorate of geology and
mining in Maharashtra government, for
alleged offences under the Prevention of
Corruption Act.
Financial Chronicle; July 9, 2015
(Edited)

raids. CBI sources said owner/s of one or

two firms opened several firms in different
names but were being operated by the
same owner/s.
The Times of India; July 2, 2015
(Edited)
'CM, Electricity Minister
differed on solar project'
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
Kochi: C.L. Anto, a confidant of former
CM K. Karuna-karan, said there were
differences of opinion between CM
Oommen Chandy and Minister Aryadan
Muhammad over implementation of the
Solar project in the State. He made the
statement while deposing before the
Justice G Sivarajan Commission inquiring
the solar scam case. According to Anto,
Aryadan wanted to implement the solar
project through ANERT and its
associated com-panies. Meanwhile, CM
Chandy brought C-DIT into the picture,
allegedly for assisting Saritha and Biju
Radha-krishnan, the key accused in the
solar scam case.
Anto alleged that the solar project, which
was his brainchild, was hijacked by
Planning
Board
vice-chairman
Chandhrashekar
and
Local
Self
Governance Secretary R.K. Singh. When
I came to know about it, I wrote a letter
to CM Chandy seeking action against the
officials. But, no action was taken, Anto
said. Anto further alleged that the CM
and his allies also tried to delay
registration of the societies. Though he
challenged it in the High Court and
secured a favourable verdict, the
government filed an appeal against the
ruling, allegedly for helping Saritha and
her fraud company. The ministers who
extended support to Saritha feared that if
Antos company got registration, it would
become
eligible
to
become
the
implementation agency for the solar
project in Kerala. There were attempts
from the part of the politicians to create
differences among members of the
societies, which turned futile, he added.
The New Indian Express; July 8, 2015
(Edited)

CBI raid on NTPCs Barh unit premises

GYAN PRAKASH, TIMES NEWS
NETWORK
Patna: The Delhi unit of CBI along with
vigilance officials of NTPC conducted a
joint raid on the premises of NTPC's unit
at Barh in Patna district following
complaints of large-scale corruption and
cartelization in award of con-tracts at
more than twice the estimated cost. As a
result, the same set of firms is allegedly
bagging most contracts. It has also been
alleged there were certain serious and
glaring violation of norms in issuance of
tenders and execution of contracts by the
NTPC officials. The raiding team
reportedly seized several documents for
scrutiny. It is learnt that the CBI
personnel are likely to carry out more
61

to the general and the backward caste

categories during the Mayawati regime.
The current move follows the state
cabinet
authorising the
irrigation
department on Tuesday to demote the
scheduled caste staff who had been
promoted by virtue of consequential
seniority which the Supreme Court had
held unconstitutional in 2012.
The Hindustan Times; July 9, 2015
(Edited)
JSPL, villagers to settle land issue
mutually
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
Angul: The expansion of Jindal Steel and
Power Ltd (JSPL), which has been hit by
land hurdle, is likely to start soon if all
things go well. At a meeting attended by
Collector S.R. Jadhav, it was decided that
JSPL officials and represent-tatives of
land oustees will mutually resolve the
issue of ex gratia for land acquired for the
expansion. MP N. Pradhan, Chhendipada
MLA S.K. Behera, Angul SP R. Pandit
and LAOs attended the meeting along
with representtatives of JSPL and PAFs.
The meeting was conducted as per
decision of Sixth Rehabili-tation and
Periphery
Development
Advisory
Committee (RPDAC). It was decided that
JSPL should invite representatives of
Birankeswar Shilpanchal Khyatigrasta
Prajasangha and Maa Kaluni Prajasangha
and resolve issues.
Though IDCO has already acquired land
after paying compensation to land losers
and later legally handed it over to JSPL,
villagers have been obstructing the
project for nearly 5 years for higher
compensation.
Since
com-pensation
including ex gratia has been paid in full, it
will be beyond scope of law to pay
additional compensation, JSPL said.
However, since the demand for payment
of additional ex gratia will be decided
mutually, it will be second such
compensation. JSPL has built a 2-MTPA
steel plant and 810-MW captive power
plant as part of its 24,000 crore 6MTPA integrated steel project.
The New Indian Express; July 7, 2015
(Edited)

HPSEB staff to oppose power bill

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
Shimla: The Himachal Pradesh State
Electricity Board Employees Union will
support the National Coordination
Committee of Electricity Employees and
Engineers one-day all-India strike against
the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2014.
The union termed the proposed bill antipeople. It decided to hold protests and
rallies on July 21-23, when the Electricity
(Amendment) Bill 2014 will come up or
discussion in Parliament. Hira Lal,
general secretary, said the Bill aimed at
further splitting power discoms into
carriage and content (electricity supply
business) to enable profit mongers to
enter the supply business in the urban and
revenue potential areas without any
invest-ment. The Bill would open up the
electricity distribution sector for cherry
picking by suppliers, forcing the poor and
low-end consumers to pay more, he said.
The Hindu; July 6, 2015 (Edited)
56 KSEB staff died in
electrical mishaps since 2011
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
Thiruvananthapuram: As many as 56
employees of the Kerala State Electricity
Board had been killed in electrical
mishaps since 2011, according to the
statistics presented in the Assembly. A
majority of the victims - 33 - were
linemen, while 15 were electricity
workers, Electricity Minister Aryadan
Mohammed said.
The New Indian Express; July 8, 2015
(Edited)
UPPCL may press revert button on
engineers
HT CORRESPONDENT
Lucknow: UPPCL has started gearing up
to revert or demote to their original posts
around four dozen engineers posted in the
corporation and its discoms who had got
out-of-turn promotion availing the benefit
of consequential seniority under the
reservation in promotion policy. These
engineers, who belonged to scheduled
castes, superseded their seniors belonging
62