New Delhi, November 24: The power ministry’s hopes of achieving 85% of the capacity addition target during the 11th Plan may fall through due to non-availability of Chinese labour.Power projects scheduled to be commissioned during the current financial year with a capacity of 4,000 mw have been stalled as the Centre has tightened the visa norms for Chinese workers.
If the issue is not sorted out soon, chances are that many more projects will be delayed, aggravating the situation.”Due to non-availability of commissioning engineers from Chinese companies, these projects are likely to slip, thus adversely affecting the commissioning programme of power projects for the year 2009-10,” Bharatsingh Solanki, minister of state for power, said in a reply to a Parliament question on Monday.
The power ministry has requested the ministry of home affairs for expediting issuing of employment visas to the Chinese engineers so that plants can be completed on time.
It is learnt that power secretary H S Brahma has written a letter to cabinet secretary K M Chandrashekhar pointing out that a large numberof power projects are likely to be affected this year and thefollowing year due to shortage of skilled labour.
Visas of several Chinese technicians and workers engaged in turnkey power projects in India were scrapped after a probe revealed that hundreds of Chinese workers had applied for a business visa instead of employment visa. The probe followed persistent objections by Indian unions to hiring of Chinese labour and semi-skilled personnel for the projects when Indians could do the job as well. Nearly 58,500 business visas were issued last year.
Companies such as VS Lignite Power, Wardha Power, Adani Power, CLP Power and KSK had employed a large number of Chinese workers.
China has also expressed its concerns over India’s tight visa policy for Chinese workers.
Last week, the government claimed that it would be able to achieve 66,000 mw of capacity addition target out of the 78,700 mw set out in the 11th Plan.
–Agencies–