New Delhi: The government will soon give the green light to the new power tariff policy, which aims to impose financial penalties for unscheduled power outages by power distributors from April, Minister of Power RK Singh said. State power regulators would establish the penalty on distribution companies for voluntary load shedding, Singh said. Among other reforms in the sector, he said that the UDAY 2.0 scheme, meant for the revival of debt-laden distributors, will be set off with more technological interventions aimed at bringing down their aggregate, technical and commercial losses.
"The proposal for tariff policy is ready and will soon go for Cabinet approval. The policy provides for a penalty for unscheduled power cuts, except in the case of technical faults or act of God (natural calamities)," Singh said during an interaction with media persons.
The second version of UDAY also aims to addresses the problems of meter reading, billing, collections and leakages or theft.
Regarding stressed assets, Singh informed that nine such power projects, with 11,400 megawatts (MW) capacity in total, have been resolved as efforts are being made to aid the others. He noted that there were 60 stressed power projects in the country.
On the topic of Saubhagya, the household electrification scheme, Singh said that till date, 1.92 lakh families have received electricity connection out of the 2.48 crore targetted households.
Regarding the suggestion of a high-level empowered committee led by Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha, Singh informed that the Group of Ministers on the power sector, headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, is in the process of vetting the recommendation given by the panel.