All households to be electrified before 2022, says Piyush Goyal

The power minister said the government has set a deadline of August 15, 2022 for electrification of all households in the country and May 2018 for the electrification of all villages.

All households in the country will be electrified before August 15, 2022 and all villages before May next year, the Lok Sabha was informed on Thursday.

Power minister Piyush Goyal. (PTI file)

Power minister Piyush Goyal said the government has set a deadline of August 15, 2022 for electrification of all households in the country and May 2018 for the electrification of all villages.

Goyal said he was happy to announce that the government will complete the task much before the deadline.

The minister said during Question Hour that the accumulated loss of DISCOMs has increased from Rs2,53,700 crore in 2012-13 to Rs3,60,736 crore in 2014-15.

As per the ‘Report on Performance of State Power Utilities’ published by Power Finance Corporation Limited (PFC), the accumulated losses and outstanding debt of DISCOMs have increased from Rs2,53,700 crore and Rs3,04,228 crore respectively from 2012-13 to Rs3,60,736 crore and Rs4,06,825 crore respectively in 2014-15.

“I am hopeful that we will improve the situation with the help of the state governments,” he said.

However, since launch of Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY) in November 2015, the participating states have provisionally reported reduction in annual losses by approximately Rs 11,000 crore from 2015-16 to 2016-17, he said.

Replying to another question, Goyal said the previous attempts at addressing the DISCOMs’ adverse financial position were limited, as they could not achieve financial and operational turnaround.

“Accumulated loss and debt kept on increasing due to several reasons which includes limitations of the scheme, limited participation of states and unsustainable operations of DISCOMs,” he said.