Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy said that the Government will take electricity to every home in the country by 2020. While addressing “Light of Asia: The Future of Energy” session at the Raisina Dialogue 2016 here today, Shri Goyal said “ By 2019-20, I am fairly confident, well ahead of target that we will take electricity to every home in this country. And that for us is truly a development goal, that in five years, we want to make sure that everybody gets electricity, not waiting for 2030.” On providing affordable power , Shri Goyal said that Government is committed to provide affordable power to its people because we believe that there is no use of taking power to the people if they cannot afford it.
Goyal further added that UDAY programme is an overarching reform implemented by Government of India which focuses to bring down the inefficiencies and loses in the system, both financial and operational, and reduce the power cost by saving of Rs 1,80,000 crore every year. This will make the ‘Affordability for Power’ a truly successful mission. So far, the results have been quite encouraging, Shri Goyal added.Referring to the WTO’s decision on solar energy, Shri Goyal said, “I can very easily create another mechanism and I will not let this deter my mission because my mission comes out of conviction. India will still stand committed to 100 GW of solar power.” Taking about using coal as base of power in the country, Shri Piyush Goyal reiterated that for India, Coal is our domestic fuel; we want to be self sufficient and energy secure. “Country’s energy security comes first but at the same time, I am proposing that we have only super critical and ultra super critical clean coal technologies which are efficient in the future”, he added.