With over $21 billion of power plants stalled due to natural gas shortfall, Power Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia wants an urgent solution on fuel woes to generate an additional 14,000 MW of electricity.
Besides seeking untied gas currently produced or likely to be produced in future by companies like state-owned ONGC and GSPC, Scindia wants fertiliser plants to spare some gas after fulfilling the requirement for producing urea.
In an interview a news agency Scindia said, “30 million tonnes of fertiliser needs to be produced (to meet) the requirement of the agriculture sector (which) indeed was a priority but inspite of that we have to see whether there is any scope to eke out some gas for the power sector.”
The Minister said the need of the hour is to get gas for the power plants during the current financial year.
At present, only a third of the 72 million standard cubic meters per day of gas requirement of the 18,713 MW gas-based power plants is being met. Another 8,000 MW capacity is almost ready for commissioning but there is no gas availability to fire the plants.
“Right now, the discussion is focused as to what can be done in current fiscal. We have to see what tweaking we can do --- 3 or 4 per cent or whatever it may be, to come up with some relief for the plants,” he said.
Admitting it was a challenging situation to provide gas to the power plants during the current fiscal, Scindia said, “In the short term i.E. In FY'14 it is going to be a problem because we need to supply 30 million tonnes of fertilisers. The next meeting of the Empowered Group of Ministers' we will look into the solution for this part, it is work in progress.
“We have to see whether there is any possibility, can something (gas) be eked out for the power sector and if yes, what is it going to cost,” he said
At the same time he added that one or two meetings of the EGOM cannot guarantee decisions and it is work in progress.