All villages in the country would be “electrified” by May 1, 2017, and as of now most of the States — including Uttar Pradesh — is being “provided surplus electricity” .
In an informal luncheon interaction with newspersons, Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said there is 24/7 surplus power supply to all the States including Uttar Pradesh. He said Government “has never discriminated” between States and been “fair” to all of them.
Goyal said it is for UP to use the surplus electricity supplied to it by the Centre. The Minister said ‘Vidyut Pravah’ (www.vidyutpravah.in), an app developed by his Ministry is devoted to monitor the real time electricity and its availability across the country. “There is no shortage of electricity in UP”, he asserted. Goyal said southern States like Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh has 24/7 power supply even as Karnataka “is facing some problems”.
The Minister said there is not a single power plant in the country which does not have a regular supply of coal and made available domestically. “ We are importing less coal now”, said Goyal and made an interesting observation pointing out that all the thermal plants in the country until now were designed for “using imported coal”.
Goyal said his Ministry is giving adequate emphasis to the renewable energy sector, particularly solar energy. He is of the view that there should be “multiple choices” available to the user like in the case of a mobile services. There seem to be some objection to this proposal.
The Minister is optimistic that by May 1, 2017, all villages in the country would be electrified.
Goyal also mentioned another app of his Ministry ‘Ujala’ (www.ujala.govt.in) that is set up to monitor distribution of lED bulbs across the country. He said unlike the west, India will emerge as a major producer of solar energy in future.