PM calls meet on power reforms

PM calls meet on power reforms
SANTANU GHOSH

NEW DELHI, FEB 21: The Prime Minister would hold a meeting of all the chief ministers in the first week of March to discuss the issue of power sector reforms. The Ministry of Power has already signed MoUs with a number of states and is also in the process of finalising the MoUs with a number of states including West Bengal, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir.

The central government would offer a lot of incentives to the states including additional power from the central utilities and increased fiscal support.The Ministry of Power has also moved the finance ministry with a proposal to additional outlay for this purpose.

Talking to The Indian Express, Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Power said that though the Ministry of Power has already approached the finance ministry with the porposal of additional outlay, it may not form part of this budget but is likely to be announced later.

The power sector reforms would be discussed with the various states and further issues like auditing at the various stages of generation, transmission and distribution would also be discussed. This would be the first discussion with the states after the Union Cabinet’s recent approval on the power sector reforms.

Concrete steps are also being taken by the power ministry to check the loss in the transmission and distribution (T&D) of power in the SEBs. The Power Ministry will hold several round of meeting with the World Bank and Asian Development Bank officials for funding the restructuring of the SEBs.

Addressing the issue of greenfield projects, the power minister added that discussion have already been held with the leading FIs like IDBI, ICICI, LIC and IDFC. It has been decided that these agencies will fund those projects with which they as well as the state governments are comfortable.

Efforts are also on to rope in GIC for funding of power projects, the minister added. Commenting of the issue of direct sale of power by the private players, Prabhu added that the power ministry is open to this idea.