Kerala, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha to join UDAY scheme soon: Piyush Goyal

KOLKATA: Kerala, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha are slated to join the Centre’s Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana ( UDAY) scheme for revival of state electricity distribution utilities, coal and power minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday.

The government is also looking at ways of tweaking the scheme to include some 12 states that have not unbundled their electricity boards into separate generation, distribution and transmission companies. At present such states are not eligible for UDAY.

"There are small states where unbundling doesn’t make sense given the small volume of consumers under them," Goyal told reporters at an interactive session organised by Indian Chamber of Commerce in Kolkata. "We will make an announcement soon that will allow these states to participate in the scheme," he said.

While Kerala is expected to join the scheme in two weeks, Goyal said West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has verbally agreed to join UDAY.

The Cabinet had in November approved the scheme to ease discoms’ financial crunch that has impacted their ability to buy electricity. The rescue plan is aimed at empowering the utilities to break even in next 2-3 years have.