NEW DELHI: Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal asked states to give the power sector the importance it deserves. He also warned states against holding indifferent attitude towards the sector, saying the Centre will not give any support to such states.
Inaugurating the State Power Minister’s Conference here on Wednesday, Goyal invited states to put forward a collective, collaborative and cooperative approach which will help in creating a corruption-free power sector in the country.
Goyal said the challenges in achieving 24x7 Power for all are not over yet and in the next 3-4 months, a final push is needed to electrify the remaining 4,141 un-electrified villages in the country. At the last meet, all the states had agreed to provide electricity to every household in the country by December 2018.
He said the objective of the conference is to review the work done in the sectors of power, coal, renewable energy and mining by state governments / Union territories in the past six months. Further, the conference intends to forge new policies to achieve the goal of providing 24x7 quality and affordable power for all in the stipulated time.
The minister also clarified that the government will recognise the power to set tariff is with the regulator, but it does not stop the government from holding discussions. “We want to discuss how the tariff could be vibrant so that it could benefit the industry and business,” said Goyal.
He added the government’s next target is to supply superior quality of coal to power producers to improve electricity generation and reduce pollution.
Recently, fuel quality watchdog Coal Controller had downgraded 41 per cent of samples from Coal India’s mines.