Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday noted with concern the reluctance shown by states and UTs to clear power dues. Addressing the ‘Ujjwal Bharat Ujjwal Bhavishya–Power @2047’ programme through video-conferencing, the Prime Minister said different states had outstanding dues of more than Rs 1 lakh crore to power generation companies, Trend reports citing The Tribune.
Various government departments and local bodies owed more than Rs 60,000 crore to the power utilities, he said. “States also often default in paying the money committed to electricity distribution companies as subsidy. This arrear, too, is worth over Rs 75,000 crore. Thus, about Rs 2.5 lakh crore meant for power utilities has got trapped,” the PM said.
PM Modi said line losses in the country were in double digits unlike developed countries where these were in a single digit. This indicated wastage of a lot of electricity, the PM said. Warning that this tendency of sitting over an issue and leaving it for resolution in distant future could result in disastrous consequences, the PM requested the states whose dues were pending to clear these as soon as possible. — TNS
175 GW renewable energy target
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