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• The power sector in India has been long treated as the middle son of the economy - high expectation, but not much investment. Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Ravi Uppal, president of L&T Power says pushes for more attention and hopes that the government focuses on the needs of the power sector going ahead."The nation is far from the 11th five-year plan power capacity target of 78,000MW," he says. If the economy has to grow, the power sector issues need to be addressed, he thrusts.Also Read: PMO to hold meetings on thermal, gas power projs this week

• Import duty has been a bone of contention to sector players for long now. According to him, import duty on power equipment is important for providing a level playing field to local players. Right now, the government permits import of equipment for plants up to 1000MW at a minor 5% duty.This, domestic players such as L&T and BHEL claim, is hampering order inflow for them since companies find it cheaper to import, mainly from China. They want the figure to be upped to 19%."Encouraging domestic industry through import duty will not undermine the power sector," Uppal says. The fact remains that order inflow opportunities have been fewer while competition has been severe in the industry.

• Q: We are speaking ahead of the Budget where expectations are very high for the infrastructure space. Specifically in terms of spend or projects do you have any expectations or do you think its just going to be tweaking in terms of some of the duty relief?

• A: Very soon we are going to get into the 12th Plan and I am specifically speaking to you about the power sector. In the last plan, we had thought that we will add as much as 78,000MW unfortunately, we are going to be far away from the target, we go ahead with just about 45,000MW. For the next plan we have targeted about 80,000-85,000MW. It is important that we give a kick start to our efforts for the 12th Plan, so that a big gap that we left behind in the 11th Plan could be made good.

• I hope the government will focus on the power sector because if the power sector doesn't grow the rest of the economy is not going to grow. The thumb rule is, if the economy has to grow at 8-9% the power sector must grow between 11-12%. Let us just hope that the sector which is facing a kind of crises at this moment that the 12th Plan brings a lot of cheer and good news. I am looking up to that.

• Q: The other big thing hanging over the sector is the custom duty on imported power equipment on which the Cabinet met and then dithered and deferred it. Is there a rethink going on there else it should not have taken so much time?

• A: I don't have a reliable news reports about. We are still hoping that when the new Budget is presented government will come with a proposal to provide a safeguard to the domestic industry. This is something which is long overdue. It is extremely important to have this kind of safeguard duty to protect the interest of the local industry.

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