Why India’s power sector is rattled
A weak economy, delayed payments from state-owned power distribution companies, lending bottlenecks and climate change-induced natural calamities are rattling stakeholders across the board in the power sector.
A recent report by SBI has highlighted the fact that electricity demand in India contracted to an eight-year low in September. This contraction in demand has had an impact on all the three stakeholders – the power producer, power distributor and the lender (in this case banks).
JSW Energy, a part of the $14-billion Sajjan Jindal-backed JSW Group, in Q2 of this financial year, said that India’s power demand growth had declined to 1.6 per cent from 6.8 per cent, when compared on a yearly basis. Prashant Jain, Joint MD and CEO, JSW Energy, attributed this to heavy rains and floods in West and South India.
