Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy, has expressed confidence that all Discoms in India will be making profits by 2019. “This is important, as we cannot burden people of India with tariff increases”, he said.

Goyal was speaking at the Power Focus Summit 2016. While giving a status update of ongoing rural electrification programme, Piyush Goyal confirmed that 5,542 villages or one-third of the total, have been electrified as of today. “There are another 1,390 villages, where electrification work is done, they are under energization”, he revealed.

Key Announcements:

* The village electrification target for 2015-16 was 2,800.
* It was revised to 5,800 after PM’s announcement on Independence Day.
* PM set the target to electrify 8,452 un-electrified villages within 1000 days.
* 5,542 villages have been electrified so far.
* There are another 1,390 villages, where electrification work is done, they are under energization.
* Officials themselves have fixed their target to electrify 7,000 villages by March end.