NLC India to aggressively bid for railways' solar projs: Goyal

Union minister Piyush Goyal today said state-owned NLC India plans to aggressively bid for Indian railways' solar projects.
"Indian railways plans to have a bidding process to soon come out for expanding solar footprint of railways where NLC India Ltd is also having very aggressive plans and will be bidding very aggressively to try and get those contracts through the bidding process," the Railways Minister told reporters here.
The company, he said, was now investing in solar projects so that it becomes a serious player in the renewable energy sector.
"They (NLC India) are also having discussion and dialogues with Indian railways," Goyal, who also holds coal portfolio, said.

The company forayed into the renewable energy sector with the commissioning of a 140 mw solar photo voltaic power plant at Neyveli and a 51 mw wind energy plant in Tamil Nadu.
"In renewable energy, they already have about 191 mw today. It will become 300 mw by March 2018; and by 2025 it's actually 4,251 mw that they are planning. So almost 24 per cent of their 13,700 mw will be renewable energy," the minister said.

The minister also urged the West Bengal government to accord approval for transfer of DVC's Raghunathpur power project to NLC India Ltd.
"There is also a discussion going on...for transferring the Rahunathpur power plant from DVC to NLC India Ltd for which we are awaiting approval from government of West Bengal for almost two years...I would urge the West Bengal government to give us approval so that we can transfer the Raghunathpur power plant," Goyal stressed.

"If they (West Bengal government) had given us permission two years ago by now we would have actually started Raghunathpur plant and it would have started serving the people of India," the minister said.