FM Nirmala Sitharaman nudges states for energy planning

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday asked states to build infrastructure and do "energy planning" thereby ensuring uninterrupted, quality supply of power is made available to industries at reasonable rates, enabling them to grow their businesses.

At an event here, she said the Centre would extend all its support to help states build the necessary infrastructure and this does not pertain to Tamil Nadu but to the others also.

Referring to her budget announcement of allotting ₹7.50 lakh crore to the infrastructure sector in the country, she said it was comparatively higher to the ₹5.50 lakh crore that was allotted last year.


"My appeal to states is that they should ensure electricity and it should be made available 24 hours, all 365 days at reasonable rates. Industries should get quality power," she said.

Sitharaman said every stakeholder should work towards ensuring uninterrupted power supply so that 'power shortage' does not occur since it poses as a major hurdle for the industry's growth.

The Finance Minister was speaking at the Stakeholder's Outreach Programme organised by Directorate General of Foreign Trade on the occasion of India signing a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with the United Arab Emirates and the Economic Cooperation Trade Agreement (ECTA) with Australia.

Sitharaman stressed on 'ease of doing business' following the signing of two agreements with Australia and UAE, respectively, so that adequate infrastructure and energy was readily available to respective states.

"To states we have released ₹50 lakh as interest-free loans to build infrastructure," she said.