With five States, including Maharashtra, going into elections this year, 24x7 supply of electricity will be one of the key deciding factors for the BJP.
Aware of this, Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power, Coal, and New & Renewable Energy, had a marathon session on Tuesday with energy ministers of all the States and Union Territories.
Adequate supplyIn a resolution, the States agreed to get their power utilities to ensure adequate fuel supply and to have a long/medium-term power procurement plan in place for assured supply of electricity.
Drawing flak for power outages in many parts of the country, the Centre asked the States to reduce electricity theft and ensure regular supplies.
On Tuesday, all the States assured the Centre that they would reduce technical and commercial losses in accordance with the agreed trajectory and those over-achieving will be incentivised. The target is to bring down losses by 15 per cent at the national level by 2021-22. The roadmap for each State from 2014-15 to 2021-22 has also been finalised.
It was also decided that the Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DUGJY) for rural areas and Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS) for strengthening of sub-transmission and distribution network and metering in urban and semi-urban areas will be implemented in a timely manner.
The States also agreed to finish all ongoing projects (phase-I) under the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana by December.
On coal supplies, the States agreed to provide support for the resolution of issues such as land acquisition so as to achieve the production target of one billion tonnes of coal by 2019.
Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh resolved to attend to land acquisition and other issues expeditiously to complete three ongoing and critical rail projects.
The States also endorsed the new dispensation for third-party sampling and analysis of coal to assess quality and resolved to implement it urgently through their utilities.
Coal India will ensure supply of crushed coal and washed coal in line with the prescribed time lines, it was decided.
The States also agreed to implement clean energy programmes.
‘States at fault’Goyal, who has been very vocal on the lack of response from the States, had earlier blamed them for lack of initiatives and disputes with private companies.
On September 7, while speaking to the media, he was critical of Maharashtra and said: “Since I took charge I have made several attempts to reach out to the Maharashtra Chief Minister but he hasn’t been able to give me time…”
He added: “The only communication from the State (Maharashtra) was to resolve the dispute between Tata Power, Adani Power and the state distribution utilities on the issues of compensatory tariff, where the Centre has no locus standi and we declined to interfere… I feel the sector should not be politicised.”
The other State which was not coming on board was Uttar Pradesh. Goyal said he was likely to meet Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav after September 15.