Prime
minister Dr Manmohan Singh today said that power shortages
had to be addressed urgently to aid the economy sustain
an annual growth rate of 9 to 10 per cent.
Speaking
at a conference in New Delhi on energy, Dr Sing said that
13 per cent energy shortage in the peak season, "does
not look very promising" and that India needed a
"crash programme" to raise capacity to eliminate
shortages by 2012.
"We
have not been able to make a decisive breakthrough in
ensuring high and sustainable rates of growth of this
sector and improving its financial health," he said.
The
PM said that the current level of losses in transmission
and distribution, ranging between 30-45 per cent in many
states, "threatens the financial health of the sector.
A large proportion of these losses are due to theft. Power
theft is the cancer of the power sector."
India
plans to add 78,577 megawatts of power generation capacity
by 2012, mainly from coal-fired units, to tide it over
an acute shortage.
To
provide power for the Indian popultion, as envisaged under
the National Electricity Policy, by 2012 and increase
the per capita power availability by nearly 50 per cent
would require a 100,000 megawatts (MW) of capacity.
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