At 520 GW Installed Capacity, India Is Power-Sufficient Nation, Says Minister

(MENAFN- KNN India) ** New Delhi, Mar 13 (KNN)** Noting that India has transformed from being a power-deficit nation to a power-sufficient one, the government has said that there is adequate availability of power in the country and the present installed generation capacity stands at 520.51 gigawatt (GW).

“Government of India has addressed the critical issue of power deficiency by adding 296.388 GW of fresh generation capacity since April, 2014 transforming the country from power deficit to power sufficient,” Minister of State for Power Shripad Naik said in a written reply in Lok Sabha.

The Minister said that energy supplied in recent years has largely matched the country’s energy requirement, with only a marginal shortfall primarily due to constraints in state-level transmission and distribution networks.

Official data shows that the energy deficit declined from 7,583 million units (0.5 percent) in FY2022-23 to 4,112 million units (0.3 percent) in FY2023-24 and further to 1,590 million units (0.1 percent) in FY2024-25. In the current financial year 2025-26 (up to January 2026), the gap narrowed to 427 million units, or 0.03 percent of total energy requirement.

Naik said that in order to strengthen the power distribution sector and improve the quality and reliability of electricity supply, the government launched the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS) in July 2021.

The scheme aims to enhance the financial sustainability and operational efficiency of distribution utilities.

Under the programme, works worth Rs1.53 lakh crore have been sanctioned for strengthening distribution infrastructure, while Rs1.3 lakh crore has been approved for smart metering projects based on proposals submitted by states.

The infrastructure works include creation and upgradation of substations, installation and augmentation of distribution transformers, replacement of ageing conductors, undergrounding of high- and low-tension lines, and segregation of agricultural feeders.

The scheme also focuses on the large-scale rollout of smart meters to improve billing efficiency, enable automatic energy accounting and strengthen load forecasting.

Prepaid smart metering covering 19.79 crore consumers, along with smart system metering for 2.11 lakh feeders and 52.53 lakh distribution transformers, has been sanctioned. So far, 4.55 crore smart meters have been installed under RDSS, while 5.97 crore smart meters have been installed across the country under various schemes.

** (KNN Bureau)**

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