India added 8,800 Megawatt (Mw) of coal0based power generation capacity last year that was funded by state-owned financiers Power Finance Corporation (PFC) and Rural Electrification Corporation (REC), according to Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) .
The total money lent for these projects was around Rs 40,223 crores, it said, adding the projects which received funding in 2019 include Udangudi Thermal Power Project of 1,600 MW capacity in Tamil Nadu, Adani Godda Power Plant of 1,600 MW capacity and Patratu Power Plant of 4,000 MW capacity in Jharkhand and the first two units of 800 MW capacity each of Yadadri Power Station in Telangana.
The thermal power generation sector is facing stress carrying $40-60 billion of potentially non-performing assets, IEEFA said. When PFC acquired REC, it formed the country’s largest non-banking finance company with a total asset book approaching $100 billion as of December 2019.
PFC and REC have lent extensively to coal-fired power projects with $49 billion or 54 per cent of their total loan book exposed to thermal power, IEEFA said.
