India agrees 8,000MW power projects

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NEW DELHI, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- The Indian Power Ministry has signed power purchase agreements for two proposed projects each with a capacity of 4,000 megawatts.

The agreements were signed between two special purpose vehicles formed for the two projects -- Sasan Power Ltd. and Gujarat Power Ltd. -- and the representatives from 22 distribution utilities from the nine beneficiary provinces, The Business Line newspaper reported Tuesday.

Besides the central province of Madhya Pradesh, others that have been allocated power from the Sasan project are Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Chandigarh.

"While Madhya Pradesh would offtake 1,500MW from the project, Punjab will draw 600MW, Delhi and Haryana (450MW each), Rajasthan (400MW) and Uttaranachal (100MW)," the ministry said in a statement.

According to the ministry, the host state, Gujarat, will draw 1,900MW from the proposed Mundra project; Maharashtra will take 800MW and Rajasthan and Haryana will get 400MW each.

"The initiating of PPAs of such a large magnitude, in addition to a tariff-based bidding process, will promote the key objective of the electricity act and facilitate investments by private sector, enabling the end user to consume power at competitive rates," said federal Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde.

The move is aimed at kick-starting country's ambitious ultra-mega power project proposal, a local media report said.