As part of the National Monetisation plan, the government has identified power generation and transmission projects worth Rs 70,000 crore for monetisation by FY25.

CNBC-TV18 has learnt that the power ministry has finalised Rs 15,000 crore worth projects from NTPC and NHPC each and Rs 40,000 crore transmission projects of Power Grid.

The plan includes hydro-power plants, as well as renewable energy plants, of NTPC. Some assets of the company may include 800 Mw Koldam Projects and NEEPCO’s 1,525 Mw projects. Apart from this, some renewable projects such as Bhadla and Mandausar are likely to be part of the plan.

The other area of concern raised by the ministry is re-drafting of Joint Ventures and Memorandum of Understandings with states where projects have certain obligations such as free power, project land rights, and in some cases, the state governments have right over a project after a certain period of time.

"Possible options for hydro project monetisation like demerger, slump sale, hiving-off needs to be evaluated based on cost-benefit analysis on various aspects like tax efficiency, maximization of value for shareholders, clearances among other things for a best possible model for monetisation" said a source.

The ministry has also raised some concerns about private sector participation in renewable energy projects, which have high tariffs.

It has flagged that large scale monetisation of assets in the power sector may adversely impact the valuation of the company and has sought assurance from the NITI Aayog and the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) that shareholder value will be enriched and not eroded as foreign institutional investors, domestic mutual funds, pension funds are invested in these publicly listed entities.

The government has planned projects of Rs 32,300 from power generation and 66,800 crore worth of projects from power transmission under the monetisation plan. It has so far completed transactions of Rs 7,700 crore through the InviT (infrastructure investment Trust) model for some of the transmission projects of the Power Grid.

(Edited by : Bivekananda Biswas)

First Published:Jul 27, 2021 4:13 PM IST