: Power, coal, renewable energy and mining minister Piyush Goyal gave a stern message to states that did not turn up for a biannual meet. Addressing the inaugural session of a twoday conference hosting energy and mining ministers of all states, Goyal said the meetings held by him are not time bound and asked his counterparts in states to reschedule their other engagements in the two days. Bhag lo Ya Bhag lo,’ (either participate or don’t complain,) he told the gathering of ministers and top bureaucrats handling energy and mining portfolios. Goyal said states that do not take biannual meetings seriously should not expect help in issues related to power, coal and mining sectors. “This is a businessoriented, focustooutcome session,” he said. Energy and mining ministers of 23 states attended the first day of the conference, while ministers of Uttarakhand, Telengana, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Mizoram and Meghalaya did not turn up.
The states, however, were represented by bureaucrats. The twoday conference that began here on Wednesday will review the work done in the sectors of power, coal, renewable energy and mining by state in the last six months. Goyal said the conference will deliberate on longterm power tieups by state distribution companies at concessional or fixed rates to industries. The conference will work on action plans for complete electrification by December 2018, rationalisation and simplification of consumer tariffs, promotion of digital payments of electricity bills, cyber threats to electricity grid and energy efficient technologies. The conference will also consider a proposal by India’s largest power producer NTPC Ltd BSE 0.09 % to pool fixed charges for all its coal and gasbased projects. Post pooling, NTPC proposes to put its lowcost stations on optimum utilisation and use its costlier
power plants sparingly in ‘reserve shut down’. Rationalisation of coal linkages, improving coal quality, development of captive coal blocks for power sector, guidelines for renewable energy projects, auction of mineral blocks and curbing illegal mining will also be discussed during the twoday meeting.
Source:ET
