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Prime Minister Narendra Modi has reviewed the progress of power, renewable energy, petroleum and natural gas, coal, and mining sectors.
An official statement said, “It was noted that the installed power generation capacity in India has risen to 344 GigaWatts (GW). India's energy deficit, which stood at over 4 per cent in 2014, had shrunk to less than 1 per cent in 2018. Significant capacity additions have been made in transmission lines, transformer capacity, and inter-regional transmission.”
India now ranks 26th in the World Bank's ‘Ease of Getting Electricity’ Index, up from 99th in 2014. Progress in household electrification under the Saubhagya initiative, was reviewed. Discussions also focused on last mile connectivity and distribution, in both urban and rural areas, the statement said.
In the new and renewable energy sector, cumulative installed capacity has nearly doubled, from 35.5 GW in 2013-2014, to about 70 GW in 2017-2018. In solar energy, installed capacity has increased from 2.6 GW to 22 GW in the same period. Officials also expressed confidence that India is on track to comfortably achieve the target of 175 GW installed renewable energy capacity by 2022.
The Prime Minister asked officials to work towards ensuring that the benefits from increase in solar energy capacity, reach the farmers, through appropriate interventions such as solar pumps, and user-friendly solar cooking solutions.
In the petroleum and natural gas sector, it was noted that targets set under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana will be comfortably achieved in the current financial year. In the coal sector, discussions focused on further augmentation of production capacity.
The review meeting, which lasted for over two hours, was attended by top officials from infrastructure-related Ministries, NITI Aayog, and PMO, the statement added.
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