Government focus on electricity access, demand: Piyush Goyal

The Government is focusing on a multipronged strategy to ensure increased electricity access and demand, said Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy. Goyal was speaking at the session, “Energising India through Global Partnerships” at the CII Annual Session 2016 here. Goyal said that the overall strategy includes a focus on enhancing energy efficiency, thrust on renewable energy and ensuring sustainable growth. “Our first priority is reaching power to the poorest of the poor in the country and I am fairly confident of bringing electricity to all villages by next year. We intend to reach every home in the country by 2019,”Goyal stressed. On lowering industrial tariffs, Goyal said that the effort is to address inefficiencies. UDAY, the power sector reform, is expected to result in savings of Rs180,000 crore annually from 2019. These savings would provide headroom to bring down tariffs. Listing out nine achievements of year 2015-16, Goyal said 7,108 villages have been electrified out of 18,452 un-electrified villages against the target of 2,800; distribution of more than 9 crore LED bulbs by EESL thereby achieving 150% growth ; addition of highest ever 3,200 MW of wind power capacity; 24,171 MW conventional power addition; Power Grid Corporation commissioned projects of more than Rs 30,000 crore accomplishing annual growth of 39% ; Initiation of transmission bids worth Rs. 1 lakh crore was also done in span of one year. Goyal reiterated, “Country has become coal surplus. We had done the highest ever coal production of 42 mt in single year. In two years , we had added about 74 mt tonnes of coal production. Coal India produced 536.5 million tonnes of coal recording 8.6% growth rate, highest ever since 1988. Solar projects worth more than 21 GW bid out were also bid out during the year.” Goyal said, “We will focus on increasing electricity demand, developing hydro power and intrastate transmission. Also there is a need to build enough redundancy in the system to address breakdowns.” Goyal stressed that public-private partnerships are central to the power sector. He expressed confidence that India would meet the target of 20,000 MW of solar power by 2017 and the 100 gigawatts target of renewable energy by 2022. Regarding international cooperation for global competiveness and technology, Goyal stated that dialogue with several countries including the US, Japan and Australia have moved from a Government to Government dialogue to a Government to business interface. The International Solar Alliance (ISA) is a key initiative launched by India to seek cooperation at a global level. Goyal said that we are working on creating simply, reliable and friendly regulatory framework for the industrial fraternity because ultimately entrepreneurs will lead India into the path of development.