Jharkhand to sign pact for central power scheme tomorrow

Jharkhand will sign a pact tomorrow with the Power Ministry to join a central scheme for the revival of debt-stressed power distribution companies to become the first state to join UDAY.
"In the presence of Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of State for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy & Chief Minister of Jharkhand Raghubar Das, first MOU with State of Jharkhand on 'UDAY' (Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana) for operational and financial turnaround of discoms will be signed tomorrow," an official said.
The Cabinet had in November approved UDAY to ease the financial crunch faced by power distribution companies or discoms.

The scheme was launched to tackle the Rs 4.3 lakh crore debt on discoms besides measures to cut power thefts and align consumer tariff with cost of generating electricity.
Some of the states like Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh had already given their in-principle nod to join UDAY.
Goyal said in a tweet today, "Congratulations to Hon CM of Maharashtra @Dev_Fadnavis for joining UDAY. This is a huge leap forward in providing 24X7 power to Maharashtra."

UDAY assures the rise of vibrant and efficient discoms through a permanent resolution of past as well as potential future issues of the sector.

It empowers discoms with the opportunity to break even in the next 2-3 years.
This is through four initiatives of improving operational efficiencies of discoms, reducing power costs, decreasing interest cost of discoms and enforcing financial discipline on discoms through alignment with state finances.
In an another tweet, Goyal said: "Happy to share that we electrified 160 villages last week, an increase of 42% over the week before."
Ministry of Power has electrified 160 villages last week (ending on January 2 2016) in the country, an official statement said.
Out of these electrified villages, 57 villages in Chhattisgarh, 40 in Odisha, 27 in Bihar, 16 in Rajasthan, 9 in Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh each and one village falls in states of Tripura and Assam each, it said.

Speaking about Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojna (UDAY),
Pujari said that the MoUs signed with states will cover over 50 per cent of total debt of distribution companies.
"The MoUs signed with states will cover over 50 per cent of total discoms debt of Rs 4.37 lakh crore by March 31, 2016, under Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojna (UDAY). Bihar, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh are finalising the MoUs for joining the scheme," he said.
At present, MoUs signed with four states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh have covered over 35 per cent of total debt of discoms.
The Centre has said that as many as 15 states have given in-principle approval to join UDAY scheme. But the scheme is an optional and will be applicable to states only after inking the MoUs.

On the 'One Grid On Nation', Pujari said, "First it happened on December 29 and twice in January when across the whole nation you could get power at one price anywhere in the country. Now the price of electricity has been the same at bourses for three consecutive days till yesterday."
Addressing the summit, he said in power generation alone there is a potential of about Rs 9.26 lakh crore investment which includes Rs 1.8 lakh crore in six UMPPs and Rs 2.7 lakh crore in nuclear power.
He also said that there will be total investment of Rs 78,603 crore in transmission segment including Rs 25,299 crore in the last quarter of this fiscal.

Earlier Oil Secretary K D Tripathi said that there are plans to set up a 60 million tonnes refinery at Western coast (with Rs 1.5 lakh crore investment).
He also said that 6.7 million LPG consumers have given up their subsidy and 5.7 million BPL consumer have been alloted new cooking gas connections with subsidy in last seven months.