Govt may cut power price to boost rural supply: Goyal

The Centre plans to supply affordable electricity to rural households by creating huge demand for setting up solar and thermal power capacities, and cutting aggregate transmission and commercial (AT&C) losses. It does not plan to come up with any bailout package for power utilities, but instead help bring down power prices and reduce AT&C losses so that affordable power can be supplied to rural India. By 2020, the government aims to supply electricity to the entire 200 million rural population that does not have access to power. It intends to expand power generation capacity to 800 GW by 2030 and to fuel this, it is aiming at a coal production of 1.5 billion tonne by 2020. Power Minister Piyush Goyal said, ´There are some 20-22 households that do have access to power. We are working on a holistic plan to provide access.´