Indian Government encourages private players to take part in the Power Transmission and Distrib

The government has called for more participation by private players in the power transmission and distribution (T&D) sector. "We want more and more private participation in the sector to sustain the growth momentum.

We are aware of the challenges faced by the industry, including a shortage of coal and gas. We are considering them sympathetically and carefully," said Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde.He was addressing the 'Elecrama 2012' summit hosted in Mumbai by IEEMA, the apex body of electrical equipment manufacturers.

The shortage of coal has badly impacted the upcoming ultra-mega power projects at Krishnapatnam (AP) and Mundra (Gujarat). "The government is in touch with the authorities concerned and discussing the issue with various ministries," he said. "We have also asked the Planning Commission to address the issue of demand and supply of coal and gas in the 12th Five-Year Plan (2012-17)," said Shinde.

On the government's decision to impose duty on power equipment imported from China, he said, "We have to protect the interest of local manufacturers."The Ministry of Heavy Industries has proposed to impose nearly 17 per cent import duty on Chinese power equipment. Under an initiative of the Power Ministry, several joint ventures have been formed to manufacture supercritical boilers and turbine generators for thermal plants.

These JVs have been formed between L&T and Japan's Mitsubishi, Alstom and Bharat Forge, Toshiba and JSW, Ansaldo and GB Engineering and Thermax and Babcock and Wilcox. In addition, state-run BHEL has entered into a collaboration with Alstom and Siemens to make supercritical boilers and turbine generators."We are encouraging domestic manufacturing of power equipment. We want India to export turbines in the future," said Shinde.