Industry review - power sector
09 October 2000
Plant load factor (PLF) in most of the plants has been very low compared to the power plants in other parts of the world.
The sector fortunes have also been bogged down by resource constraints.
In India electricity tariffs are a politically sensitive issue and often create turmoil. This is the reason for poor performance of most SEBs and has also resulted in serious financial problems.
Till date, the players have not started giving adequate consideration to the alternate energy sources for power generation.
Sector comments
Not withstanding the massive increase in generation capacities over the past decades, the history of the Indian power sector has been punctuated by shortages, massive pilferages and a demand-supply gap, which has been growing. So chronic have been the shortages that, at times fears have been expressed about a negative impact on industrialisation due to these shortages.
