NEW DELHI, JANUARY 19, 2017: The government will have the capacity to provide power to every home by 2019, according to Minister for Power, Coal, New Renewable Energy and Mines Piyush Goyal.
Participating in the second edition of the annual Raisina Dialogue, organised by Observer Research Foundation in association with the Ministry of External Affairs, here on Wednesday night, Mr Goyal said the power position in the country has become very positive now.
“Now we have the capacity to produce 50 percent more power from tomorrow, if required,” Mr Goyal said while ‘in conversation’ with ORF Director Sunjoy Joshi. He said just in two years, the country has moved from power deficit to power surplus. Power shortages due to excess demands are now things of the past. Instead of the earlier supply-side problem, now we have demand-side problem, he said.
Mr Goyal said simple management techniques like close monitoring of authorities, new business model have done wonders for power generation. While there was just nearly 12 percent shortage, the power generation capacity has increased 3-4 times. Over 45 gigawatts were added in the last two years, he said.
Mr Goyal said except one big State, which he did not name because of the forthcoming elections, all other States have now signed the Power for All 24 x 7 document. He said the government efforts have succeeded in making LED bulbs from 0.2 percent earlier to 16 percent now, reducing peak loads as well as carbon prints. “We are distributing 600,000 LED bulbs every day across the country”, he said.
The transmission loss has also come down to 3.5-4 percent, comparable to the best bench mark in the world, the minister noted. “We want to bring it down by one percent more,” he added.
Earlier, Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani was the star panellist in the panel on “Women in the New World Order’, moderated by BBC World News international correspondent Yalda Hakim. Saying she believed in balance in terms of gender, the minister said she always faced the added burden of doing better than the best in the field, irrespective of the gender.
More than 250 participants from 65 countries are taking part in this year’s three-day Dialogue, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday. The first edition was attended by 120 participants from 40 countries.
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