Cabinet Secretary, PK Sinha, chaired the second meeting of the High-Level Empowered Committee to address the issues of stressed thermal power plants on Friday. However, RBI officials were yet again not present at the meeting.

An official statement said, “Senior officials from various Ministries and major lenders (Banks and Financial Institutions) attended the meeting and deliberated upon the issues related to the resolution of the stressed thermal power projects. The deliberations will continue further.”

Officials present at the meeting said that representatives from the Reserve Bank of India were not a part of today’s meeting. The RBI officials were not present in the earlier meeting too. “The committee is looking mostly at short-term measures to resolve issues of power sector non-performing assets. There will be a meeting of Coal Ministry officials separately for linkage issue of power plants. The government will continue deliberations with States to ensure timely payment to generation companies,” an official said. This High Level Empowered Committee, headed by Cabinet Secretary, has representatives from Ministries, including Railways, Finance, Power and Coal, and from lenders having major exposure to the power sector.

The Committee will look into the various issues to resolve them and maximise the efficiency of investment. This includes changes required to be made in the fuel allocation policy, regulatory framework, mechanisms to facilitate sale of power and ensure timely payments.

The payment security mechanism, changes required in the provisioning norms/Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), Asset Restructuring Company (ARC) Regulations and other measures proposed for revival of stressed assets so as to avoid such investments becoming NPA are also on the agenda of this committee.

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