Sukhbir Badal calls on union minister Piyush Goyal-Gets approval for Rs.800 crore for Punjab under DDUGJY

Union Minister of Power, Coal and Renewal Energy Mr. Piyush Goyal today gave his nod to release Rs. 800 crore for Punjab under Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) with a view to modernize and upgrade rural power sector besides assuring Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Mr. Sukhbir Singh Badal to examine sale of surplus power from Punjab in coming months.

This decision was taken by Mr. Goyal when Mr. Badal on Monday called on him here and urged to resolve the pending power issues of state power utilities. The Union Minister said that the proposal under DDUGJY submitted by Punjab was considered and Rs. 800 crore would be released under this very soon. He said Punjab, which was already a forerunner on power production front in the country, would get another boost after getting the project under DDUGJY to modernize and upgrade its transmission and distribution power system in rural areas. He said this project would witness complete separation of agriculture and non-agriculture feeders facilitating judicious power supply to agri and non-agri consumers in rural areas with improvement in hours of power supply.

On the request of Mr. Badal regarding sale of surplus power from Punjab, the Union Minister said that center would examine this proposal very soon. The Minister asked the state Powercom to submit a detailed proposal in this regard so that the possible modalities could be looked into.

The Union Minister also gave his nod to provide full capacity coal linkage and supply to Punjab thermal plants as per the agreement in future and there would be no shortage in this regard. Mr. Goyal also assured Mr. Badal that the clearance to Pachwara coal mine allotted to Punjab in Jharkhand would also be given in the coming days. He has issued directions to the authorities concerned to make this site operational as soon as possible.

Deputy Chief Minister also highlighted the issue of coal quality besides initiating the sampling and coal analysis at loading end. The Union Minister after hearing this issue assured Mr. Badal to introduce third party sampling and analysis before loading of coal to maintain the quality of coal.

Mr. Goyal has also agreed to enhance supply of 1.00 million tonne coal of Central Coalfields Ltd to 1.50 million tonnes. Mr. Badal also thanked Mr. Goyal for fulfilling the major power demands of Punjab, which will further give a big push to power reforms in the state.

Among other present in the meeting included Secretary power Anurag Aggarwal, Additional Resident Commissioner Rahul Bhandari, CMD Powercom K.D. Chaudhary and Additional Principal Secretary to Deputy CM Rahul Tiwari.