NHPC to add 6 projects in FY13; plans capex of Rs 4097cr

State-owned hydro power producer NHPC reported a 15.3% fall in net profit year-on-year and 16.5% quarter-on-quarter to Rs 670 crore in the first quarter of the current fiscal. In an interview with CNBC-TV18, ABL Srivastava, Director-Finance of NHPC said generation in Q1 has been 6,148 million units, which is a drop of 3% YoY. According to him, this year generation is at par due to the addition of a plant.

In the instance of a poor monsoon NHPC expects a marginal shortfall in generation units and the company is planning to add six more projects in FY13. NHPC's capex for the current fiscal has been planned at Rs 4,097 crore, informed Srivastava. Further, the company estimates 24,000 units of power generation during the fiscal year and hopes to maintain margins.

Here is the edited transcript of the interview on CNBC-TV18.

Q: Your sales has been pretty much tepid this time, down 3% odd, can you take us through how exactly generation panned out for you all this quarter? What would be the impact of the monsoon going forward?

A: The generation for the first quarter of this year has been 6148 million units as compared to the 6284 million units last year. There has been a drop of roughly 3% as compared to the corresponding period previous year.
 
The overall generation till date with respect to the previous year is at par because we had added one plant during this period. However, if we exclude generation from the new capacity addition, this shortfall is roughly 3% as compared to the previous year.

Q: How does it pan out for the rest of the year since you have an additional problem now of a bad monsoon?

A: On overall basis we have been able to achieve last year's figure and as per the plans for the year, we have to roughly add 1000 million units from the new capacity. In case the monsoon situation does not improve, there is likely to be a marginal shortfall as compared to our commitments and new targets. No major shortfall is expected.

_PAGEBREAK_

Q: Will you be able to force any price hike at all?

A: Although generation is slightly lower than the previous year, it is higher than the design energy. Therefore, the loss will be with respect of the secondary energy only. The generation is more than the design energy and therefore there is no question of a price hike as far as the tariff is concerned.

Q: One problem which a lot of brokerages or analysts have on the street with NHPC is because of the execution delays or the execution delays that the company has been facing in the past two-three years. Give us a sense in terms of what exactly would be your execution target for FY13 and how much have you achieved already?

A: We have a plan to add six projects during the current financial year with a capacity of 1,212 megawatt. Out of this, one project is of 231 megawatt, Chamera- III has been added during the year. I agree that there has been a shortfall in capacity addition in the last two years as against our commitments. We are hopeful that after Chamera-III, we will be able to add Chutak, Nimmo- Bazgo, Uri-II, TLDP III and one unit of Parbati III.

Q: All this will be in FY13?

A: We are hopeful of achieving it within FY13.

Q: What are your current plans for FY14 in terms of capital expansion?

A: In the current year, we have planned a capital expansion of Rs 4,097 crore.

Q: I was asking for FY14, both in terms of capacity and capex?

A: FY14 is likely to be of the same order, roughly Rs 4,000 crore.

_PAGEBREAK_

Q: And 1,000 million units?

A: During the current year it is more than 20,000 million units and the designed energy or the projects which are likely to be added during the year is 4,000 million units. Therefore, in the next year, the estimated generation is likely to be around 24,000 million units.

Q: For FY13 as a whole, what would your revenue target be as well as your profitability, what sort of estimates are you working with at this point?

A: We are hopeful of maintaining last year's margin.