Union Power Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has emphasised over an urgent solution on fuel woes to generate an additional 14,000 mw of electricity. Over $21 billion worth of power plants have stalled due to natural gas shortfall, Scindia said. 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.
Scindia said that 30 million tonne of fertiliser needs to be produced to meet the requirement of the agriculture sector which indeed was a priority but inspite of that the government has 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.
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