Demand slow; UDAY benefits will take time to accrue: NTPC

Power demand is slowing down says Kulamani Biswal, Director-Finance at NTPC who believes it will take some time before the benefits of the government’s Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY) scheme starts bearing fruit.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18 Biswal says available capacity is 91 percent but current plant load factor (PLF) is around 78 percent.

NTPC was able to raise Green Masala Bonds at reasonable yield of 7.84 percent, he says.Below is the verbatim transcript of Kulamani Biswal's interview to Latha Venkatesh & Anuj Singhal.Latha: The last time we got the core sector data, which was about two-three days back, the power output showed a distinct decline. Is that the situation on the ground, you are not seeing enough demand?A: In Q2 our generation has increased marginally and up to September we have generated 6 billion units in comparison to previous figure. So, the generation is increasing and that is why we are hopeful of Q3 and Q4, as against 241 billion units which we generated last year, our target is 246 billion unit and we will meet the target.Latha: But that is barely 2 percent higher? Is that your entire target is?A: So far electricity is concerned unless there is demand you cannot develop.Latha: So there is no demand you are saying?A: My plant load factor (PLF) is 78 percent and the capacity is 91 percent that means I am able to generate up to 91 percent.