With electrification of 6,000 villages so far, the ministry of power has achieved one-third of its target. The prime minister had set the target of rural electrification of 18,452 villages by May 2018.

The Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana, a flagship programme of the ministry of power, has been further allocated with Rs 8,500 crore in the union budget 2016-17. Minister of state for power, coal and renewable energy, Piyush Goyal, said that with this support the target would be met in time. He also informed that in the union budget the total plan outlay for the ministry of power has been increased to Rs 12,200 crore from Rs 6,800 crore.

While interacting with media in New Delhi, on Wednesday, the minister highlighted the achievements of various departments under its ministry.

Talking about the increase in coal production over the last one year, Goyal said two-thirds of the power plants were coal-starved when the Modi government came in. Today, he added, no power plant is facing coal shortage. “There were headlines that power plants do not have enough coal and the country will run out of power. Today, at an average, all of them together have over 25 days of stock. There is growth in production of over nine percent in Coal India Limited and 24 percent in South Eastern Coalfields Limited.”

The minister further said that the budgetary proposal to double the cess on coal to Rs 400 per tonne will add Rs 40,000 crore per year in the government’s kitty and will give wings to its project to clean the environment.

Talking about improvement in the power transmission in southern region, the minister said by adding 22,800 circuit kilometers of transmission network, the power transmission to the southern states such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry was increased by 71 percent in the current financial year. It would further increase to 80 percent.