According to the Wednesday announcement from National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), the company’s year-on-year net profit figures for the fiscal ending March 2009 rose 5.56 percent, after deducting Rs. 1,400 crore for the employees’ wage revision in 2008-09.

Putting for the precise figures at the annual press briefing on Wednesday, NTPC Chairman and Managing Director, R. S. Sharma, told reporters:  “NTPC’s profit after tax for 2008-09 is Rs. 7,827.4 crore against Rs. 7,414.80 crore in the previous fiscal. We made a provision of Rs. 1,400 crore for the wage revision announced recently otherwise our profit after tax would have crossed the Rs. 8,000-crore-mark!”

The state-owned utility, which supplied 29 per cent or 206.94 billion units of the total electricity generated during 2008-09, has reportedly planned a capital expenditure of Rs. 17,700 crore in 2009-10. The company also intends raising a Rs. 8,500 crore loan from a public sector bank, as well as importing 12.5 million tonnes of coal to improve the domestic supply and demand equation.

Outlining the NTPC borrowings during the current fiscal, Sharma put the figures at Rs 11,330 crore, which the company would be spending for upgrading its capacity by 3,300 MW. In fact, during the ongoing Five-Year Plan period - from 2007 to 2012 – NTPC is looking at a capacity addition of nearly 22,430 MW.