According to the union power ministry states electrified 25 million households under Saubhagya in 17 months
Union minister of state for power R K Singh on Tuesday said the country was on path to achieve 100% household electrification by March 31, 2019 and the next goal would be for 24/7 power for all households.
The agriculture sector has been exempted from supplying 24/7 supply as it may lead to water wastage and over-exploitation of the already stressed groundwater resources. Addressing the inaugural session of the Conference of Power and Renewable Energy Ministers of States and UTs at Gurugram today, Singh said day-long power supply could be achieved by strengthening the distribution network, improving the DISCOMs health, reducing the transmission and distribution losses, and using technology to improve billing and collection efficiency and energy efficiency.
The two-day conference will review the implementation of various ongoing schemes and programmes and deliberate on a host of issues pertaining to power and renewable energy sectors.
According to the union power ministry states electrified 25 million households under Saubhagya in 17 months.
Singh said the government was in talks with the Reserve Bank of India for a payment security mechanism for power generators that have huge dues on distribution companies that buy power from them for sale to consumers. According to the ministry of power data, distribution companies owe Rs 36,134 crore to generation companies which includes Rs 1,6158 crore to NTPC and Rs 5,399 crore to Damodar Valley Corporation.
Discoms, on the other hand, face a shortfall in subsidy payments from the states. On account of the increase in supply to rural consumers, DISCOM’s dependence on direct revenue subsidy by the state government has increased. Further, there has been Rs 2,090 crore shortfall in subsidy realization against Rs 84,617 crore subsidy booked for FY18. Government departments at the end of September 2018 had outstanding dues of Rs 37,286 crore compared to Rs 25,262 crore at the end of September 2017, an increase of 48 per cent, thus impacting discom finances.
During the inaugural, Singh also launched energy efficiency label for residential sector in India. Developed by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), the programme will provide the information to consumers on the energy efficiency programme standard of the homes to be constructed across India.
This will enable to have a benchmark to compare one home over the other on the energy efficiency standards so as to create a consumer-driven market transformation solution for energy efficiency in housing sector.
The proposed labelling program is expected to save substantial amount of electric energy through various energy efficiency efforts in houses nationwide. With the implementation of Energy efficiency label for Residential Buildings it is estimated to achieve an energy saving of up to 40% over the conventional houses with annual savings of 90 Billion Units by the year of 2030. Further, the Labelling mechanism will reduce energy bills for home buyers. The likely CO2 emission deduction by 2030 will be 320 MT annually.
Source: business-standard
