New Delhi: In order to ramp up power production in India, the government has taken enhanced measures for time-bound implementation of 18 coal-based thermal power projects having a total capacity of 25440 MW, one gas-based thermal power project having a capacity of 370 MW and 42 numbers of hydro-electric projects (above 25 MW) having a total capacity of 18033.5 MW, which are presently underway in the country.
Union Minister for Power, New and Renewable Energy RK Singh on Tuesday told in the Rajya Sabha that nuclear capacity totalling to 8000 MW is under various stages of construction. “Also, 22840 MW additional coal-based thermal capacity has been planned by 2030. Out of this, 15300 MW will be under the central sector and 7540 MW under the state sector,” he said. He further said that four states and UTs including the UT of Jammu and Kashmir and UT of Ladakh (erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir), Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh have imposed water tax on non-consumptive usage of water.
Singh said that India has been witnessing a sharp increase in the sector of power generation. Giving statistics, Singh said that a total of 1624465.61 GWh of electricity has been generated through various sources of energy including thermal, nuclear, hydro and renewable in India in 2022-23. In the last four months, a total of 287863.33 GWh of electricity has been generated through various sources of energy across different states.
In another reply, Singh said that India has imported 6580 MU of energy from Bhutan in 2022-23 whereas it has imported 782 MU till June this year. In the same year, 1263 MU of energy was imported from Nepal whereas 89 MU has been imported till June this year. India, however, exported 1421 MU of energy to Nepal in 2022-23 whereas it has exported 703 MU of energy till June this year. Significantly, India exported 8622 MU of energy to Bangladesh in 2022-23. A total of 2181 MU of energy has been exported to Bangladesh till June this year.
Referring to the availability of coal, Singh said that the import of coal for India’s thermal power plants (DCBs) was on the decline since 2019-20 primarily due to the increased availability of domestic coal on account of various policy measures taken to increase domestic coal production. The quantity of imported coal in 2020-21 was 35.1 million tonnes which came down to 18.9 million tonnes in 2021-22. In 2022-23, a total of 20.5 million tonnes of coal was imported from abroad whereas 7.7 million tonnes was imported till June this year.
