Power Grid (PGCIL) will raise Rs 4,000 crore via AAA-rated corporate bonds in September this year. The company has a mandate to raise Rs 14,000 crore for the year 2016-17 of which PGCIL has already issued financial bonds worth Rs 3,400 crore, last quarter.
As on March 2016, the company has laid out more than 3 lakh ckm of transmission lines, a 33 per cent increase from 2012 (257,481 ckm). According to IS Jha, CMD, PGCIL, “In 2012, only two per cent lines were based on 756 kV, which has increased to seven per cent in 2016.”
Jha further explained: Due to addition of more than 1 lakh ckm of transmission lines in the last four years, power congestion has reduced from 5.59 per cent (2014) to present 2.16 per cent.
Meanwhile, to strengthen its grid network, PGCIL is also inducting 1,200 kV UHVAC transmission lines, developed by the company with 35 consortium partners. WhatÂ’s more, the company will augment its capacity from 7,900 MW in the western region to 18,000 MW by 2020.
Investment and plans
For the current financial year, PGCIL has invested Rs 7,000 crore in capex, out of the total Rs 22,500 crore earmarked for FY17.
Till July, PGCIL has constructed 3,690 ckm transmission lines and will be commissioning 15 transmission line projects this financial year. In addition, it will be inducting 20 more substation projects of which PGCIL has already commissioned six till now.
Commenting on consultancy project, Jha said that the company has received projects worth Rs 19,000 crore and in the first quarter it has received 10 new orders. The orders under development are from the Railways and Bihar. Meanwhile, the company has 117 projects in hand.
The CMD said that ongoing projects were worth Rs 140 lakh crore. New projects were worth Rs 15,000 crore. The total work in hand so far is Rs 144 lakh crore, which will be commissioned in the next four years.
Use of technology
The company has started using drones for patrolling of transmission lines. It has already purchased four drones which are equipped with high resolution cameras. “They are connected with our central servers where we accumulate images from the drones,” Jha said.
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