Govt plans to leverage power for cooking needs of poor: R K Singh

The government is mulling to leverage power for cooking in a big way to help the poor, Power Minister R K Singh said on Sunday.

The minister said that power will provide poor strata of the society a cheaper option for their day to day requirement, move the nation towards self-reliance and make it independent from imports (petroleum), according to a power ministry statement.

The minister rolled out the vision for the government while inaugurating community facilities developed by NTPC at Nabinagar, Barh and Barauni for the convenience of NTPC employees and people of Bihar.

"Electricity is the future of India and most of its infrastructure will be powered by electricity," the minister said.

The government has envisaged Power Foundation to be formed at the Ministry's level and objectives include cooking to completely run on electricity, which will allow Indian economy to be self-reliant and give us independence from imports.

This government is for the poor and this move will help the poor strata of the society by giving them access to cheaper medium of cooking, Singh has said.

The minister added that the delivery of various other pro-poor measures like PM Awas Yojna and Har Ghar Bijlee, were accelerated during the lockdown by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Singh also lauded various initiatives of NTPC that show the power producer's unflinching commitment to the nation and its economic growth.

"Questions have always been raised on the performance of PSUs, but looking at the performance of NTPC and other Power PSUs, it is clear that they are even better than the private players and have consistently made progress and profit. I thank NTPC for being a partner in the progress for the state of Bihar as well as other states towards nation building," he added.

Speaking during the inauguration function, NTPC CMD Gurdeep Singh said, "NTPC has 3,800 MW of project under construction in Bihar and will keep on contributing to the progress of the state."

The construction of new facilities and infrastructure is aimed at providing necessary services to the workers and associates of NTPC and improve the living standard for the people around plant area in the state of Bihar.

With a total installed capacity of 62.9 GW, NTPC Group has 70 power stations comprising 24 coal, seven combined cycle gas/liquid fuel, one hydro, 13 renewables along with 25 subsidiary & JV power stations. The group has over 20 GW of capacity under construction, of which 5GW comprises of renewable energy.

Singh also laid foundation stone for construction of LILO (line in line out) of Kishenganj-Darbhanga 400kV Transmission Line at Saharsa in Bihar. The project will improve power scenario of the Saharsa along with Supaul, Khagaria and Begusarai districts.

The execution agency for the Rs 100-crore project is POWERGRID Ltd, a central PSU under the Ministry of Power.