States to provide 24X7 power by March 2019

The Dollar Business Bureau

All the states have decided to provide round-the-clock power supply to every household by March 2019, Power Minister Piyush Goyal said. He was speaking to the reporters after attending a two-day conference of power and mining ministers of states and union territories in Goa. “All the states have agreed to provide 24x7 power to all the people by March 2019 or earlier,” he said.

"Besides, all the states except Left-Wing-Extremist-affected ones, also resolved to electrify all the remaining unelectrified villages by December 31, 2016," he said.

During the conference, all the states have agreed to use smart meters, which are communication-enabled and tamper-proof. The smart meters costs have been brought down by 60% Rs 3,223 per unit from Rs 8,000 as a result of central procurement process. “The endeavour is to go for only such meters in the future for Rs.25 crore consumers in the country,” the minister said.

The Power ministry also declared the launch of a digit helpline number - ‘1912’ for consumer complaints across India. All the contributing states have decided to ensure that operational and financial milestones in the MoU for UDAY Scheme will be implemented.

“It was successful fruitful dialogue over two days and everyone worked in service of the poor and farmers in a cooperative and collaborative manner demonstrating the strength of our democracy,” Goyal said at the outcome of the two-day meeting.

The minister stressed that the meeting disproved the idea that different political interests cannot bring about commonality of a purpose.

Goyal, along with the state ministers, also discussed the hydro-power policy, as the meeting sought to work out means to revive small hydro-power projects. “Hydro-power policy was also discussed and the meeting sought to work out ways of reviving small hydro-power projects with cooperation from the states.” The committee will submit all the proposals of this project on September 30 this year.