Union Minister for Power, Coal and Renewable Energy, Piyush Goyal on Wednesday expressed satisfaction over the implementation Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY).
Goyal was speaking at the launch of UDAY's web portal and mobile app at a Delhi based five-star hotel. The web portal and mobile app are supposed to track and monitor progress of DISCOMs under operational and financial parameters.
"It is a great day and so far 20 states have joined our UDAY programme. I am told 21 is a luckier number," Goyal said, urging Power Ministry officials to get more states to sign up for the union government's financial assistance and power distribution management scheme.
"States with almost 90 per cent of total DISCOM debts and 70 per cent of the population have been covered so far under UDAY,'' he said. Citing the example of Rajasthan, the minister said, “The state has pared down annual power distribution losses of Rs 15,000 crore and has turned profitable”.
He expressed concern over the quality of data being provided to the Union Power Ministry by states and stressed that monitoring under the UDAY scheme “has to be strict”. Goyal cited example of Panchkula district of Haryana which managed to bring down power transmission and pilferage losses to a bare minimum and become the first district in the country with 24-hour uninterrupted power.
If successfully implemented, this would be the first time when performance metrics of various DISCOMs would be available on a single platform. "This shall promote healthy competition amongst the DISCOMs/states. This will bring about an ethos of ‘Competitive Federalism’ among different states to achieve best progress in public schemes, especially in the power sector,'' Goyal added.
The minister said the UDAY initiative would go a long way in fulfilling the present government’s target of electrifying every home by 2020.
