Chennai: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman appealed to states on Tuesday to build infrastructure and do "energy planning," thereby ensuring uninterrupted, quality power supply is made available to industries at reasonable rates, enabling them to grow their businesses.
At an event here, she said the Centre would extend all its support to help states build the necessary infrastructure and this does not pertain to Tamil Nadu, but other states as well.
Referring to her Budget announcement of allotting Rs 7.50 lakh crore to the infrastructure sector in the country, she said it was comparatively higher to Rs 5.50 lakh crore that was allotted last year.
"My appeal to states is that they should ensure electricity and it should be made available 24 hours, all 365 days at reasonable rates. Industries should get quality power…," she said.
Sitharaman said every stakeholder should work towards ensuring uninterrupted power supply so that 'power shortage' does not occur since it poses a major hurdle for the industry's growth.
The Finance Minister was speaking at the Stakeholder's Outreach Programme organised by Directorate General of Foreign Trade on the occasion of India signing a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with the United Arab Emirates and the Economic Cooperation Trade Agreement (ECTA) with Australia.
The statement comes as India faces a power crisis arising from a shortage of coal. In order to meet their power supply requirements, most industries are procuring power from power exchanges, as coal supply to the non-power sector has been regulated by the government to allot more coal to thermal power stations.
(With agency inputs)
(PSU Watch– India's Business News centre that places the spotlight on PSUs, Bureaucracy, Defence and Public Policy is now on Google News. Click here to follow. Also, join PSU Watch Channel in your Telegram. You may also follow us on Twitter here and stay updated.)