Govt mulls doubling power capacity in South

The government is planning to double the power transmission capacity in southern part of the country in the next three years.
"A lot of efforts are being made to improvise transmission sector and possibly government can plan to double the capacity in Southern India in the next three years", Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal said today.
While speaking at a summit here, Goyal said the government is planning to present an amended tariff policy soon to ensure more and more transmission projects via bidding, a Power Ministry statement said.
"We will allow transmission projects to be filled out on nomination basis only in exceptional cases", Goyal said adding that "capacity in the South has increased substantially."

The minister said that it is for the first time that a government has spent Rs 10,000 crore to set up transmission and distribution in North-Eastern areas of the country.
The minister sought participation of industry to achieve 'Power For All' goal of Government.

"Events like Power for All Summit where you engage and discuss relevant issues are truly an education for us and help us to device better mechanism to speed up our efforts to achieve 100 per cent electrification targets.
Referring to recently launched Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana, he said, "it is an entirely bottom up scheme which has emerged out of the culmination of the engagements with bankers, discoms, power producers, consumers bodies, state governments and all the other stakeholders over a long period of time."

The minister also appealed to the transmission companies to play a leadership role in explaining any loopholes in either bidding and valuation process or its technical aspects etc.
He further said: "We have made serious efforts to expedite ongoing projects and bidding out new projects in last 18 months...Last year we achieved 100 per cent of our transmission target for the first time in decades."
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Goyal further said: "I have no doubt in my minds that in next 2-3 years we can achieve the dream of 24X7 affordable, sustainable, environment friendly power for all, not by 2022 when India completes 75 years of independence which we had originally targeted, but by 2019, a good three years ahead of schedule."

Making a difference to the lives of poor, rural people and farmers is important in achieving our goal of 24X7 power for all industry, commerce, households, farmers- in the country by the year 2019, he said.
"It is easy if we (centre and states) work in the spirit of participation and cooperation. We learn from experiences of states and I am happy that this conference has developed into a good platform for exchange of ideas and understand each other's problems."
Laying a lot of emphasis on the North Eastern states Goyal said: "Unless we develop the East and north eastern states we will not be able to develop India."

Commenting on the common pool purchase policy for larger equipments such as transformers, cables he hoped his ministry will receive help from states.
"If some states feel they can do better in purchasing of equipment and machinery they are welcome however his Ministry is of the view that the centralised system with a common procurement committee is better."
He expressed happiness that two states Karnataka and Goa are signing the UDAY scheme agreement today.
Reacting to the agenda items for the conference Goyal said that hydro and wind energy has been neglected areas and it is important to get them on track with long term plans for growth in the deliberations.

Ministers from 19 states and Secretaries and officials from as many as 27 states are attending the conference.
Coal Secretary Anil Swarup said that from a shortage situation sometime back, his ministry is now facing a situation where they have coal but there are not many takers for the 550 MT coal stock.
He appealed to the generating companies in the states to stop importing coal and said the matter would be discussed at the conference.
He said Coal India Ltd has set up processes for auction of coal to public and private entities and a dispute resolution mechanism has also been set up in his ministry wherein disputes between states can also be resolved.

New and Renewable Energy Secretary Upendra Tripathy underlined the importance of differential pricing especially for the poor and underprivileged class.