No hike in power tariff due to doubling of coal cess: Goyal

The budgetary proposal to double the cess on coal to Rs 400 per tonne will not lead to hike in power tariffs as discoms will benefit a lot from UDAY scheme, Power Minister Piyush Goyal said.
"I don't see any power tariff going up. The impact of additional coal cess is barely 12 paisa per unit and in the whole context may be Rs 6,000-7,000 crore in a year but saving of UDAY scheme of Rs 1.8 lakh crore is far more than that," Power Minister Piyush Goyal said.
Under the UDAY scheme meant for the revival of debt ridden discoms, state are taking 75 per cent of the debt and issue bonds to pare loans. The discoms will issue state guaranteed bonds for remaining loans to repay the debt.

The scheme is expected to help discoms save around Rs 1.8 lakh crore in the next three years. The cumulative debt of discoms is Rs 4.37 lakh crore.
The budget has proposed to rename Clean Energy Cess' levied on coal, lignite and peat as 'Clean Environment Cess' and its incidence has been increased to Rs 400 per tonne, from Rs 200 per tonne.
Goyal was of the view that this will help government garnering money for environment friendly project like solar energy.

He said the Budget has created stronger foundation to help take off projects like Skill India and Jan Dhan Yojana to next level to help the poor.

"This government is focused on Jan Dhan Yojana, skill development, Mudra Yojana. This is all for small and medium entrepreneurs and common man," he added.
He said there are people who trying to project that we are not doing enough for rural India.
The minister said the highest number of 300 villages were electrified last week and government will electrify 7,000 villages by March end which would be nearly 37 per cent of total target of 18,452 villages by May 1, 2018.
Goyal expressed hope that all unelectrified villages will be electrified by the end of 2017 and every home will get power by 2018.

He said that funding is not a constraint for rural electrification programme as Finance Minister has met all request of Power Ministry.