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15 states with 90% accumulated losses of power distributors have joined UDAY: Piyush Goyal

Fifteen states have joined the debt recast scheme for power distribution companies covering 90% of the losses accumulated with the utilities, power ministry Piyush Goyal said on Monday. 

The development is expected to catalyse the power sector, which has already taken big steps forward with better transmission facilities, very low energy deficit and a big jump in coal availability for thermal power stations, Goyal told reporters. 

He said that time has come for India to get used to surplus coal and power availability. He said the 100­odd top power plants monitored by the power ministry have average coal stocks for 23 days as compared to critical coal supplies a year and half ago. "Consistently, for the last seven days India do not have a single thermal power plant where the coal supply is critical. This ensures uninterrupted supply of power," he said. The minister said on December 29 there was no shortage of power nationally and electricity was available on power exchange at a uniform price Rs 2.35 per unit.

"We shall be seeing larger stretches of such instances where power will be available seamlessly across the country," he said. Goyal is upbeat about the discoms package, which he said would give a permanent solution to the problem of inefficiency and losses of state­run distribution companies. Four states — Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Bihar — joined the centre's Ujjawal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) on Monday, while the rest had communicated their in­principle approvals to be part of the scheme earlier. "Within two months, we have half of the states of India on board for UDAY. 15 of 29 states have joined and the last 12 states/Union territories do not have separate discoms. We do plan to involve them in UDAY in a different fashion.

We are in active dialogues with balance states," Goyal said. He said every banker who was consulted about the scheme had wholeheartedly supported the discoms package. While loans to discoms were by state­run banks, even private banks were supportive because they had lent money to private power plants, whose performance would improve if discoms became more efficient.

Source: Economic Times