Bhubaneswar: Coal bearing state Orissa will be deprived from enjoying the benefits of Centre’s Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) scheme as the Centre has turned down state government’s proposal. Orissa government has wanted to be a beneficiary of the scheme through its bulk power purchaser – GRIDCO (Grid Corporation of Orissa). As per the guidelines of the scheme it is ineligible as it is partly privately owned and the matter is also sub-judice. Asked about any proposal to revisit the scheme to accommodate states like Orissa, Union power minister Piyush Goyal Monday said, “We are not going to revise the guidelines of the scheme. However, if the state government wants, it can ink with us to avail only the auxiliary benefits of the scheme.” It means the Centre would not provide any financial benefits to the
state for strengthening its discoms. GRIDCO is managing three discoms previously controlled by Reliance Infra. The state government through GRIDCO, owns 49 per cent stake in the four discoms CESU, NESCO, WESCO and SouthCo. Except CESU, the management of these remaining three discoms has been entrusted to GRIDCO
after the state power regulator Orissa Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) scrapped their licenses over unsatisfactory performance and their failure to contain steep AT&C (aggregate technical & commercial) losses. The state government had demanded that loans of GRIDCO be converted into bonds instead of the loans of discoms. Under the scheme, the state had proposed to provide`5406 crore. On rural electrification, the Union minister said, “As on April 1, 2015, there were 3473 un-electrified villages in the state out of that we have electrified a total of 2464 villages, where as in 515 villages no residents were recorded. The remaining villages will be connected on targeted time.” As per household is concern, Goyal said “About 38,33,840 households in the state do not have electricity connection. We are working in a mission mode to connect each village of the state.”
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