According to the Ministry of Power, in the 12th Five Year Plan ending March 2017, the fast-growing Indian power sector is projected to create more than four lakh jobs to achieve a capacity addition of over 94,000 MW with investments in the sector pegged at Rs. 13.72 lakh crore. Further out of 4.07 lakh new workforce, over 3.12 lakh would be technical people and remaining would be non-technical workers. The report of the Working Group states that the total manpower by the end of 12th Plan would be over 14.25 lakh with technical people accounting for approximately 76 percent of the overall workforce. The projections for the 12th FYP are in line with the estimates laid down by the planning commission which had stated that the fast growing power sector in the 11th FYP would create over 3.4 lakh jobs.

Further the Ministry of Power estimates that for the 13th Five-Year Plan (2017-22), there would be capacity addition of 1,23,900 MW, that includes renewable energy. To achieve the same, the additional manpower requirement shall be of the order of 5.4 lakh thereby pegging the total headcount of the sector to 17.95 lakh.