The Ministry of Power has signed an MoU for Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY) with Tamil Nadu in New Delhi, on 9 January, 2017. With the signing of the ‘24×7 Power For All (PFA)Â’ roadmap document with the state, the roadmap for all the 28 states, except one, and all the seven Union Territories in the country has now been finalised and is under implementation. It is the most significant milestone in this initiative founded on the principles of cooperative federalism.
Providing access to reliable and quality power supply to all citizens and establishments by 2019 is at the core of the Prime MinisterÂ’s vision for the nation and the Ministry of PowerÂ’s 24×7 PFA programme is aimed at delivering on it.
The programme has been instrumental in mainstreaming the ministryÂ’s focus on energy efficiency and Demand Side Management interventions and has resulted in increased participation with speedy rollout of the UJALA/DELP and other EESL-led schemes. Incidentally, UJALA has emerged as the worldÂ’s largest and most successful LED bulb programme.
The PFA programme has also benefited several states in addressing the funding gap for the investments required to ensure 24×7 power access to all. The funding gap analysis conducted as part of the exercise enabled the ministry to assist states through innovative means of financing including mechanisms such as additional funding under ongoing programs (like DDUGJY, IPDS), multilateral funding, additional support from FIs and PPPs, etc.
Electricity being a concurrent subject and given the focus of the Centre on pursuing cooperative federalism, the first task was to develop and agree on detailed roadmaps for each state.
State-specific roadmaps were prepared under the guidance of the Ministry of Power and the Central Electricity Authority (CEA). The 24×7 PFA initiative has provided the much-needed platform for all-encompassing integrated planning. In addition to integrated planning at the level of vertically unbundled utilities and other state level agencies, the exercise also provided an opportunity for mainstreaming the efforts of all Central level ministries and agencies, such as Ministry of Coal, MNRE, PGCIL, NTPC, BEE, EESL, REC, PFC etc., to ensure access to reliable and quality power to all households and establishments in each and every state by 2019.
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