Development and environment to be balanced: Goyal

Says country's power sector will witness investments of over $250 billion in the next five years

Stressing the need for doing a balancing act as far as development and environment are concerned, Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal said the developing nations have been "unfairly" taken to task on the subject of pollution.

Speaking at the ongoing Vibrant Gujarat Summit here, the minister said, "India has its challenge of getting 300 million people out of poverty, we need to keep our manufacturing competitiveness to create more jobs, to expand industry, expand the manufacturing base, become more export competitive and in that sense, we will have to balance the agenda of infrastructure."

Balancing developmental issues with environment issues is a subject that needs to be calibrated, the minister said, adding, "I am not shying away from responsibility towards the environment and we will make sure that in the spirit of reciprocity we will work."

Goyal also mentioned that the country's power sector will witness investments of over $250 billion in the next five years of which $150 billion will come from renewables.

The government is hopeful of receiving these investments in power generation, coal mining as well as electricity distribution and transmission sectors, which would in turn help the government increase power generation and ensure electricity supplies to all households in the country by 2019.

It has also set an ambitious target of generating 1,00,000 MW of solar power by 2022.