UMPPs in India: Government releases updates

To boost economic growth and human development, the Government of India planned to provide access to electricity to all its citizens by 2012.

Recognising that economics of scale leading to cheaper power can be secured through development of large size power projects using latest super critical technologies, the Ministry of Power launched an initiative in the year 2006 for development of coal based ultra mega projects. These projects will have a capacity of 4,000 MW each on tariff based competitive bidding. Ultra Mega Power projects are either pit head based projects having captive mine block or coastal projects based on imported coal.

Out of nine Ultra Mega Power Projects (UMPPs) originally envisaged under the Central Government initiative, four UMPPs namely Sasan in Madhya Pradesh, Mundra in Gujarat, Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and Tilaiya in Jharkhand have already been awarded and SPV transferred to the identified developers and the projects are at different stages of implementation.

Full benefits of these projects are envisaged to come up in the 12th Plan, however, as per revised Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), two units each of Sasan and Mundra UMPPs are expected to come in 11th Plan.

The government has recently released a special report giving the updates of 3 UMPPs proposed.