Power Minister A.K. Walia on Tuesday reviewed the progress of the new power plants coming up in Delhi and those entirely dedicated to supply power for Delhi. Addressing the high-level meeting, the Minister said efforts were being made to make available adequate power supply during Commonwealth Games-2010. He said the foundation stone laying ceremony of the 1,500 MW gas-based Pragati Power Project at Bawana would be held soon and this would pave the way for implementation of the power plant. The first 250 MW turbine of this plant would be commissioned on February 25, 2010, whereas the entire project would be operationalised in October 2010. Dr. Walia also exhorted the concerned agencies to initiate actual work on the 750 MW gas-based Bamnauli Power Plant for which possession of land has been finalised. This plant is scheduled to be commissioned in October 2011 and its first turbine would become functional in May 2011. More power Delhi would also gain from the dedicated coal-based plant at Dadri in U.P. which is expected to provide 760 MW power to the Capital city from October 2010. Also, the Aravali 1,500 MW coal-based power plant at Jhajjar in Haryana is expected to become functional in October 2010. This, Dr. Walia said, would supply 750 MW power to Delhi.

The power situation in the Indian cities is extremely distressing Brace yourself to sweat it out in the torrid summer in the coming weeks on account of load shedding, as states are switching off power supply to overcome the shortage of power. And Delhiites are already staying sleepless at nights because of the irritating noise of generators.

The penultimate year of the 11th Five Year Plan is expected to witness a record addition to power generation capacity of 15,000 megawatt, taking the total capacity to 1.75 lakh MW, but insufficient availability of coal and fuel due to environmental restrictions pose a problem to meeting the overall Plan target.

DIMAPUR, March 6

The power ministry has asked Central Electricity Authority (CEA) to regularly monitor the implementation of ultra mega power projects (UMPPs), with generation capacity of about 4,000 Mw each.

The country's largest power producer NTPC may revive its plans to set up coal and gas-based power projects in Nigeria, a proposal scrapped by the company earlier due to a delay in finalising a partner for the proposed venture in the African nation.

The government would give a special dispensation to state-owned entities such as NTPC for the development of captive blocks under a new policy to be announced within a week, coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal told FE in an exclusive interview.

The policy on development of captive blocks will, however, be tough on private sector companies who fail to adhere to agreed time-lines for development of

Power Finance Corporation (PFC) has extended the bid submission date for the Orissa ultra mega power project by another two months to March 31, with environmental issues relating to the mining of allocated captive coal blocks still being unresolved.

Anticipating rising demand for imported coal from the Indian power sector, overseas coal suppliers have started charging premium for assured coal supplies, besides reducing the normal tenure of long-term contracts from 10-15 years to 3-5 years.

The quantum of generation capacity based on 100% imported coal is rising fast in India, with developers increasingly opting for setting up plants in coa