1) Fuel Concerns
2)Social and Regulatory Concerns
3)Infrastructural Concerns
4) Delay in Financial Closure

The issues can be taken one by one as:-

1) FUEL SUPPLY GAP:

a) Domestic Supply Demand Gap is widening the Fuel shortage in various industries.Nodoubt,The Installed capacity is increasing BUT,there is a big question mark on the Demand Supply Gap.Until Unless this thing is solved,India will not be able to become a Power Honcho.
b)Stringent Environment and forest norms: Another problem faced by the Indian Power Sector is the Stringent Environment and Forest reforms.In the past year,There have been cases in which Power Plant projects were either cancelled/halted due to non compliance with the environment norms.GO as NO-GO Areas have also come into picture in lieu of environmental norms and regulations.Although to tackle these issues,Special purpose Vehicle(SPV) has come in to picture in case of UMPPs.
c) Land Acquisition Issues: Land Acquiring has become a major roadblock in the path of setting of Power plants.Although Private Producers are coming with major projects but the main thing that stands as a hurdle is the Land.Generation companies are not getting enough land to set up their power plants.

d) Long term Fuel: Although India is the 3rd largest produces of Coal in the world,still it is in dire straits as far as the Supply of coal is concerned.Last year,Targeted Coal Production was 550 Million Tonnes,But it was achieved 533 Million Tonnes and that is only 2 MT Increase as compared to previous year.Moreover,Various regulations have been imposed on the Coal Mining Companies too,Import of Coal has also got a shock as Indonesia,Australia are looking for imposing stricter norms on their Coal Export making the condition more worse for Indian Power Sector.

2) SOCIAL AND REGULATORY CONCERNS:

a) Land Acquisition problems: Acquiring Land has become as major bottleneck in setting of Power plants.Although,Private as well as PSUs have bigger plans to make India’s installed capacity grow leaps and bounds,But the “Foundation Stone” of Land Acquisition is coming on way due to socioeconomic cause.
b) Water Scarcity for Thermal Projects: Water being a prime necessity in Domestic as well as industrial use esp. in Thermal power plants has also emerged as a road block to the new Power projects.Water can be termed as “Blood” for Thermal Power Plant.Various Power plants are facing problems due to uneven rainfall conditions and due to social conditions of using river water for power plants.As per analysis,for 1320MW Power plants,it requires around 43 million cubic meters of water per year.
c) Strict Environmental and Forest Clearances: Getting Forest and environmental has also posed a detrimental effect on the capacity addition of Indian power sector.Number of projects have been brought to a halt due to environmental issues.Already India is ranked high on the pollution erupting countries in the world,therefore deforestation is not allowed.One always like”YOU CAN ELIMINATE THE THINGS FOR SHORT TERM ADVANTAGES/GOALS”.Forests are already on a depleting scale,so Environment ministry is quite dubious of allotting that land for power plants.

3)INFRASTRUCTURAL CONSTRAINTS:

a) Hindrance in obtaining Transmission access: Having a healthy transmission system has also become a prime necessity in order to commission a power plant.Most of the Land issues come as a road block in the way of Transmission system.Moreover,There is also need to change the archaic Telegraph Act that does not talk about the compensation.Land acquisition is governed by Telegraph Act 1885 which provides for payment of only damages caused due to erection of towers.According to CEA Data,around 120 Power transmission projects have been either delayed or grounded due to various reasons as stated above.
b)Lack of Coal Handling Units: No Doubt ,the installed capacity is increasing on positive scale,but the Upstream products has got numerous problems.one of which is Coal handling Units.Indian power sector is not sufficient enough to handle coal and thereby fulfilling the demand of the growing India’s power capacity.Lack of efficient systems of Coal handling units are posing a major problems,some of the solutions can be opting for Dust busters to optimize coal usage.
c) Lack of Ash Disposal Facility: Disposing Ash is also seen as an albatross around government’s neck because,Producers dont have the sole purpose of generating power.Environmental conditions should also be taken into consideration.At present Indian power plants are lacking in this regard to leading to lower capacity addition.

4)DELAYS IN FINANCIAL CLOSURE:

a) Poor Financial Health of SEBs
SEBs(State Electricity Boards) have been bad for past so many years.Some of the problems that are being faced by SEBs is Lower collecting efficient,Power theft etc.According to recent Power Line report,TNEB is having the highest AT & C Losses and quite low collecting efficiency too.There are very few SEBs,which are doing well,still the revenue has become “stagnant” for the past so many years.So untill unless this is revamped in a better way,one cant think of adding more capacity addition to the Indian power sector.
b)Contractual Agreemnet violations including PPAs:
Most prominent case in the hindering of capacity addition is the violation of PPA.There have been a number of projects in which PPA that has been signed between the two parties is not taken as benchmark report to go about it.Companies keep on forcing to revise the PPA.Actually there are two sides of the coin,Input material is getting costly day by day,so it becomes a need for the compny to opt for revised PPA in order to get adequate ROR.
c) Lack of availability of equity and funds:

Banks are not willing to give adequate funds to new players in the market and they are looking for some “guarantee” from their side which banks can take as a base while giving loans.Moreover, Micro finance institutions can’t help bigger power companies which are looking to set large capacity power plants.

Thus,we see there are various bottlenecks that are still coming in the road of capacity addition ,thereby making India devoid of adequate power!!!!!

On the same note one of our cousin in eastern localities endured similar challenging note after being dictated by rulers such as Genghis Khan to Mao Zedong. Today, they form one of the central hubs to which manufacturing tasks are outsourced. Thanks to their system, the phrase �violation of law� has ceased to exist. �Welcome to the land of rising sun: China now referred as People Republic of China. From diplomacy to industrialization, China emerges to be one of the biggest power players on earth today. The dragon, as symbolized in the national flag, represents power, strength, and good luck.

So, in a head to head battle between the two mammoths, we take a look at where these two nations stand today vis-�-vis other.

Economy:

During 1960�s the GDP of both nations were on similar lines. Today, China�s GDP is pegged to be 5.88 trillion US dollars in contrast to 1.73 trillion US dollar GDP of India. As expected, China�s wallet turns out to be fatter than India�s. Since the arrival of new millennium we have been hearing that India�s GDP would surpass that of China�s in next 30-50 years. �But the reality depicts a different story. On the contrary our eastern cousins look to take away more money than us.

Global:

While China saw influx of foreign currency since 1980�s, it took a brave attempt from Manmohan Singh to open the gates to foreign investors through liberalization in 1990s. From IT Industry in India to manufacturing in China, we resemble the genes of being the nations to get assignments. The booms and dips in the global economic cycle affected both of on an equal degree. From dot com bubble to subprime crisis, both India and China have battled to keep their cash ticking, with China making the last smart move by devaluing its currency. While foreign investors(for instance Google) have slowly backed out of China, the recent FDI fiasco in the nation has kept experts wondering when would the time arrive for nation to act. While the FDI�s of both nations are fluctuating, our eastern cousins off late had growth in FDI.

People:

While China continues its reign of communism, India is governed by diverse opinions. On one hand where the activity of people in the land of sun are monitored and unrest meets with immediate quash, people in India continue to voice their concern by the virtue of preamble. However, when it comes to average life expectancy, China turns out to be healthier than India.

Environment:

The rich are getting richer and the poor turning poorer. Traffic congestion in the nation gets escalated every-day with the surge in number of vehicles. If China responds to the challenge with robust infrastructures, India turns up the head with �work in progress� tags hanging every nook and corner. Result? While China continues to cater to more automobiles, India continues to be frustrated. Notably to reduce the panic button of debt, we had sold the carbon footprints to world way back. This has curtailed our efforts to house more industries. China on other hand continues to upgrades its villages to industries. Underlying the latter statement CO2 emissions depicts this picture.

Industry:

Long back, we had realized the vision of agriculture as being the integral part of nation�s GDP. With the progress, all forest continued to be cleaned up and agricultural land was acquired to raise Industries.

Unfortunately, agriculture today finishes last in the contribution to GDP and is overhauled by service and manufacturing sectors. Thankfully we are ahead of our cousins in this aspect.

� � � � �The big fight of tiger Vs dragon: Who will clinch the battle?

On an overall scale China turns out stronger in 3I�s(i.e.� Income, Infrastructure and Industrialization), India turns out happier in providing a conducive environment for citizens, scope for corporate institutes to rise and diverse culture. It is interesting to note if India responds to the challenge of growth poised by China. The �30-50� years timeframe(as mentioned commonly in the speeches and discourses today) should be good enough to provide the answer.

-�Sidharth Panigrahi (TAPMI), Winner of January edition of article writing competition