Even though Odisha stands second to Gujarat in terms of attracting new investments to the country’s power sector, it lags far behind in household use of electricity due to increase in power deficit over the years, the ASSOCHAM said on Monday.
The State’s share in the country’s new power sector investments is 12 per cent and 43 per cent of its households have electricity availability, it informed.
“Odisha has attracted new investments worth about `4 lakh crore against the country’s total `31 lakh crore attracted by the power sector from various public and private sources during 2004-05 and 2012-13,” according to an ASSOCHAM study.
It said Odisha attracted new investments over `3,318 crore during 2012-13, of which private sector accounted for 67 per cent and public sector 33 per cent. “Flow of private investments is determined by attractiveness of investment opportunities as they are mostly driven by profitability considerations,” ASSOCHAM national secretary DS Rawat said while releasing the report.
The study further revealed that with investments worth over `16 lakh crore, Odisha contributed 33 per cent of total outstanding investments worth over `49.5 lakh crore attracted by the sector in the country during 2012-13, clocking compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 26.5 per cent. The State’s outstanding investment had stood at `1.6 lakh crore in 2004-05.
It also informed that about 47 per cent of Odisha’s power sector investment projects were under implementation by 2012-13 as against India’s 65 per cent.
However, despite attracting laudable amount of investments, Odisha has recorded a power deficit of 2.5 per cent between 2004-05 and 2012-13, mainly due to high growth in power demand, the study pointed out.
It said Odisha ranks 19th position in terms of power consumption growth in the agriculture sector. It suggested that the State Government should lue private sector investment through a tax incentive scheme in order to garner additional funds in the power sector.
Besides, efforts should also be made to promote power generation by tapping new and renewable energy sources like wind, hydro, bio-mass and solar, it further suggested.