Coal continues to be a concern for the country: Power minister

Coal continues to be a concern for the government, Power Minister Raj Kumar Singh said on Friday. He was speaking at the fireside session "powering India at energy security" at the Business Today India@100 Economy Summit.

Singh said that the power sector needs investment for the overall growth of the country. Even as the government is focusing on renewable energy and green hydrogen, coal remains a cause of concern, the minister indicated.

“Coal is something that concerns us. If you look at our domestic coal consumption, it is about 3 lakh tonnes more than our domestic coal arrival. It's a matter of worry,” said Singh.

Talking about his government's efforts toward a green environment, Singh said green hydrogen is the fuel of future.

"Renewable energy has become cheaper than conventional energy. However, it is still intermittent, and we must add storage. We have the capacity we can put up promptly which is also environment-friendly,” said Singh.

The power ministry has recently proposed to create a central pool of renewable energy (RE) sources. From this pool, an intermediary company can procure power and supply it to an entity that may distribute and undertake retail supply to multiple states. The proposal is part of the draft Electricity (Amendment) Rules, 2022.

The Union minister has been stating that India may be breaching the 500 GW clean energy target by 2030. At the Business Today Summit, he said that he is confident that India will achieve the goal.

The minister further said that his government is strengthening the regulatory laws in the country. Talking about the Electricity Act, the minister said that distribution companies (discoms) should have competition based on tariffs and services.

“What is the system we have? It's either a government or private monopoly. What we need is a competition based on service. The Electricity Act of 2003 put in place a system where you can have multiple distribution licenses operating in the same area. That means competition based on tariff and service,” said Singh.

“We are strengthening our regulatory systems. We are adding a member of law. That's what the Supreme Court said. Earlier, some regulators would act at the behest of the state governments,” he said.

Hitting out at Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal for providing free electricity as a freebie, Singh said that “nothing is free”.

“No electricity is free. Either the taxpayer is paying for it or someone else is,” said the Union minister, adding that currently, no bank is willing to lend for setting up power stations as the banks lost Rs 60,000-70,000 crore on many power generation companies, and no money was coming.

“I want to ask the minister (chief ministers), who is paying for the freebies? Succeeding generations will have to pay for it. Do we want to become like Sri Lanka?” Singh questioned.

He further said that if India has to grow, investments must come to the power sector.

“We have put in place systems whereby if discoms don't pay bills, their access to exchanges gets cut off,” said the minister.

Making states more responsible for the energy requirements, he said that whatever loans have been taken these loans have to be repaid.

“For most of our states, the bulk of expenditure is repayment of loans,” said Singh.

“You may shout and oppose the Electricity Act, but if you pay the bills, your access to the power grids won't get cut,” he said while adding that if people want electricity, they will have to pay.

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