Scheme to revive stalled power projects soon: Piyush Goyal

MUMBAI: The Centre will soon come out with a scheme to revive various stalled power plants in the country, Union minister Piyush Goyal said on Saturday. The broad polices to make stranded projects viable were decided in a meeting between the Ministry of Power and lenders earlier this week.

“We have had a discussion with lenders. We have broadly worked out the contours of a scheme under which we will be able to complete all the stalled projects which are half-way through,” Goyal, who is minister of state for power, coal, new and renewable energy (independent charge), said on the sidelines of an energy summit. Goyal said the country is facing a situation of many projects having being initiated despite the fact that the demand growth at a particular trajectory did not warrant that.

“Therefore, we have nearly 20,000-25,000 MW of thermal power projects which are either stressed or potentially going to be stranded.” Goyal said the government has launched a coal linkage policy called Scheme to Harness and Allocate Koyla Transparently in India ( Shakti), which will help power projects to be viable.

“Those which are not viable even after that scheme (Shakti), we are looking at a comprehensive solution that will take care of them going forward, with the efforts of bankers, national utilities and financial institutions,” he said.

Goyal also said Coal India will continue to remain a single entity and will not be allowed to split further. NITI Aayog had recently recommended breaking up of Coal India into various subsidiaries. “It is not at all advisable and we are not taking up that recommendation at all,” Goyal said.