India to allow private players in nuclear sector

Moving ahead of Indo-US N-deal, Govt may soon allow pvt firms to build and run N-power plants in India, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Apr 5, 2007, 23:54:53 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Moving ahead of Indo-US nuclear deal, the government may soon allow private firms to build and run nuclear power plants in India.

A proposal to permit firms registered under the Companies Act to build nuclear plants is under the consideration of the Central government, said Dr Karit S Parikh, member (energy) Planning Commission, in a presentation to US energy secretary William Bodman, recently.

The proposed changes was also sold as a proposition to United States as an opportunity to set up ‘ultra mega’ power plants in the India. The government is also willing to relax the norms to allow easy entry of private international players in the energy sector, in a bid to meet the country’s growing energy demand. Parikh said, the government was considering relaxing the norms to allow private firms, registered under the Companies Act.

As an assurance that the power plant will not close down like Enron owned Dabhol Power Project, the government has assured of lifetime cost based purchase from the plant set up by the private sector. Karit also expressed the government’s willingness to reduce the dominance of public sector in power generation and distribution, identifying the Electricity Act of 2003 as a step in this direction.

The major reforms under government consideration are strengthening regulation and making it independent, ensuring common carrier principle for transmission and distribution assets, introducing tariff based international competitive bidding level terms and removing entry barriers for international players. “The government wants to have a level playing field for private participation,” he said.

The government is also considering setting up of National Energy Fund as recommended by Integrated Energy Policy report, encouraging zero emission technologies and three stage nuclear programme aimed at utilising thorium.

In all this, the government has identified US as a major collaborator. Five major areas - setting up ultra mega projects, exploration and exploitation of oil, natural gas and coal, development of nuclear power plants, manufacturing of power related equipment and coal mining equipment - have been identified for cooperation with the US.

Energy consumption/capita

India : 550 kWH

China : 1380 kWH

US : 13,070 kWH

World : 2430 kWH

Total energy needs

Requirement in 2006 : 617 billion kWH

If economy grows by 8 per cent: 3,880 billion kWH by 2031-32 and 4806 kWH by 2031-32

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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