New mines minister Piyush Goyal seeks to raise mineral output


Power minister Piyush Goyal, who got additional charge of the ministry of mining in Tuesday’s cabinet reshuffle, has set an immediate goal of raising the share of mineral production in gross domestic production (GDP) by one percentage point in two years from 2.4% now.

Goyal took charge of the ministry from Narendra Singh Tomar, who has moved to the rural development ministry. Goyal, who also holds the portfolios of coal and new and renewable energy, said he will meet all stakeholders in the mining industry to decide how to achieve the output growth target.

“Today it is clear that mining sector will grow fast. We will make sure that its share in GDP grows at least by one percentage point in next two to three years. We will analyse the mineral reserves and market conditions and decide which low hanging fruit to go for first,” said Goyal.

The mines ministry has identified about 50 atomic mineral blocks and about 100 others for auctions.

The government on Monday brought out rules for auctioning atomic minerals blocks. On 29 June, the Union cabinet approved procedures for auctioning of other minerals such as gold, diamond, limestone and iron ore under the National Mineral Exploration Policy. It allows bidding out of an already explored block under which the original explorer will get a share of the revenue that the state earns from the producer for 50 years.

Minerals output had grown in volumes in 2015-16 but in value terms recorded a decline. According to data from the ministry of mines, the value of the total mineral output contracted by 11% to Rs.39,767 crore in 2015-16 despite a strong 9% increase in volumes to 495 million tonnes over the previous fiscal year.
Industry executives, however, remained positive about growth in this industry.

“I am positive about the growth in the metals and minerals sector. Mining activity should grow with the reforms taken in the sector. The government is making a lot of investments. There is pick up in the highways and construction sectors. Appliances demand should go up with the implementation of the seventh Pay Commission recommendations,” said Tata Steel Ltd managing director T.V. Narendran.

Goyal is known for formulating the Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY), a revival scheme for distressed state-owned power distribution companies and for introducing efficiency in coal transportation to power plants.

Goyal is also overseeing the implementation of the world’s largest capacity addition plan in renewable energy, from 6.7 gigawatt (GW) now to 175 GW by 2022.

News Source:  Live Mint

Nathpa Jhakri Hydro Power Station builds up Rs 6,900 crore reserves

Churning water for generating electricity, India’s largest 1,500-mw Nathpa Jhakri Hydro Power Station, owned and operated by public sector SJVN Limited, is now in the process of improving its own operating standards with higher than targetted and design energy.


The power plant has been making the most of water availability in the river Satluj, currently generating in the range of 38 million units of electricity every day against its design capacity of 36 million units which is upto 1,625 MW against its installed capacity of 1,500 MW.

With optimum operations and such improvisations, the power station has been able to become debt free in less than 10 years of its commercial operations and was now generating revenue to fund the Company’s upcoming projects in other states and neighbouring countries as well, told Sanjeev Sood, General Manager/Head of Power Station, in an exclusing interview with Millennium Post.

 The World Bank-funded power plant, he told had been established with debt and equity ratio of 1 to 1. Completed at a cost of over Rs 8,300 crore, the plant thus had a debt of more than Rs 4,000 crore. With efficient finance handling and loan swapping, the company had also saved interest costs to the tune of more than Rs.50 crore, he said. The flagship project of SJVN, he added, was thus churning water not just for electricity, but massive revenues like Gold. The company already has reserves to the tune of Approx Rs.6900 crore to fund its upcoming projects, he added.

About efficient operations of the plant, he informed that during last financial year 2015-16, the power station had generated 7,314 million units of electricity against its design energy of 6,612 million units while during the first quarter of the current financial year, the power station had already produced 2,424 million units of electricity. During the 12 years of its successful operations, the power station has generated more than 82,000 million units of electricity, Sood said.

We have also taken up a R&D project with public sector Bhel in joint venture for developing mechanism of Laser Treatment over hard coating of turbine under water parts for improving their life thus resulting in low maintenance time and costs, informed Sanjeev Sood. The Nathpa Jhakri hydro power station, he further informed was the first in the country to have established its own hard coating plant near the generators.

The facility, he added, had improved the silt bearing capacity of the machines 4 to 5 times. For implementing the facility the company had preferred indegenous technology thus eliminating the frequent need of foreign consultants.

During the teething years of its operations, the power plant having the largest machines of 250 mw each in the country, it was found that the excessive silt in the river was demaging the turbine parts frequently thus necessitating their hard coating at distant places like Jodhpur/Delhi and thus we realised the need of having our own in-house hard coating facility.

Union Minister Piyush Goyal visits Tirumala


To pay his tribute to Lord Venkateshwara Swamy, Union Minister Piyush Goyal visited Tirumala Temple and offered payers. The Lord Venkateshwara Swamy temple is known world over among Hindus for its religious importance. Piyush Goyal was accompanies with his wife and other family members who visited the temple and offered their prayers.


His family offered prayers in morning VIP Darshans. Nonetheless, temple employees gave special darshan to Union Minister Piyush Goyal who showed their happiness on the treatment they received.

As the Union Minister Piyush Goyal visited the holy shrine of presiding deity Lord Venkateshwara Swamy temple at Tirumala in Tirupati he asked for the wellness of the whole country and its people. They specially thanked the authorities and priests who provided assistance in performing the religious rites.


After performing all the rituals at the holy shrine, Piyush Goyal addressed media and expressed his devotion towards Lord Balaji. He praised TTD for making good arrangement and maintaining clean hygiene.

Uttar Pradesh Government Not Ready to Purchase Power at the rate of Rs 2.25 per unit: Piyush Goyal


Hitting back at the Uttar Pradesh government which has been cribbing that they don’t have power since the center is not offering them electricity, Union Minister Piyush Goyal said the central government was providing electricity at a cheaper rate. He was quoted saying that the state government was not ready to purchase it.

According to Mr. Goyal, the center was providing electricity at the rate of Rs 2.25 per unit; however, the Akhilesh Yadav government is unwilling to purchase the power and deliver the same to the people of the state. It must be noted that the state of Uttar Pradesh is facing huge crisis in power supply to its people and the state government is just doing blame game.






The UP government is indulging in Roistering

Over the decades the governments in states have been shifting blames on the central government to abdicate their duty to ensure power supply to their citizens. However, a lot of things have changed over the last two years as now the minister of power has brought in technical inputs to ensure that the people are able to see the power generated and available power and the price. He talked about Vidyut Pravah, an app that shows the availability of power for a state and the price it is available at.


Piyush Goyal claimed that cribbing over shortage of power; the UP government is indulging in roistering, while the Centre was providing electricity at the rate of Rs 2.25 per unit. He criticised the way the state government was handling the entire issue when he said that the state government was not purchasing power and forcing the people to live in darkness. 

Piyush Goyal's Befitting Reply to NDTV's Kamaal Khan on electrification of Villages across UP


The people of Palpur in Uttar Pradesh received the power for the first time in their lives. The experience is transforming their lives. Now they can use electronic appliances like mobile phones, watch TV, use water pumps to irrigate their farms. In short the initiative by the Government of India has brought in happiness in the lives of the villagers. However, some TV news channels are hell bent to distort the reality.

Piyush Goyal has given befitting reply to NDTV's Kamaal Khan on electrification of villages across UP. Nonetheless, when a minister like Piyush Goyal, who has carved a niche for his transparent work in the Ministry of Power, is questioned it obviously raises some questions. The first question that comes is who are the people who are casting aspersions on the work done by the minister.

Second question is, are these allegations based on some data or fact? Or these are just allegation like shoot and scoot that has caught the attention lately. We recently caught Ravish Kumar and NDTV reporter lying in the prime time debate. These TV Channels don’t remember the hard work the minister did to bring a turnaround change in the power sector.

For instance, it took nine months and more than 1,000 intensive meetings for the nitty-gritty to be worked out to shape the work being done in record time. Kamal Khan out rightly lied on the data and distorted the facts that suit his interpretation. This kind of reporting should be condemned and discouraged.

Why Lying About BJP Minister Piyush Goyal?


NDTV has a tendency to portray BJP and its minister in negative shade, primarily because it has been funded by Congress politicians. Recently, NDTV money laundering case came in public domain where it has come to notice that the news channel siphoned more than 5000 crore rupees. The demand for CBI investigation is still up and it has to be seen what happens to the charges and where does the news channel ends up.


The credibility of the channel is in dustbin. The rating of the shows telecast by the channel is lowest not just in English media but in Hindi as well. Still the channel keeps doing hit jobs on the BJP ministers. The recent allegations on Piyush Goyal were unsubstantiated and false in nature as they were not backed by any evidence. The whole show was based on hearsay statements from the people whose authenticity cannot even be checked. 

Will not cut govt stake in power PSUs below 51%: Piyush Goyal

Supporting Finance Ministry's disinvestment plan for public sector undertakings, Union Minister Piyush Goyal has said his ministry will not reduce the government's stake in power sector PSUs below 51 percent.

"Finance Minister can do whatever (as much disinvestment) he wants to do. We will support him. But we will not go for (reducing government stake) below 51 per cent. That is what we had announced for CoaI India and our other PSUs," Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy Minister Goyal told PTI.

Elaborating further he said: "Management and control of the PSUs should remain with the government. Last year divestment in PFC and REC was done. If they want then we are ready for another round."

The government has set a disinvestment target of Rs 56,500 crore for the fiscal. Of this, Rs 36,000 crore is to come from minority stake sale in PSUs and Rs 20,500 crore from strategic sale.

Read full article at Zeenews India
Content Source Zeenews India

Coal ministry issues show cause notice to Reliance Power for delay in development of Tilaiya UMPP mines

NEW DELHI: The coal ministry has issued a show cause notice to Anil Ambani-led Reliance PowerBSE -0.39 % seeking reasons for the delay in development of coal blocks attached to the abandoned Tilaiya ultra-mega power project (UMPP).

The ministry has also asked Reliance Power why its bank guarantee should not be deducted for violation of the terms of allotment of the Kerandari B&C coal blocks.

Reliance Power has been given 15 days to reply.

"Tilaiya UMPP project has received a huge setback, rendering the country deprived of power to be produced from the said project. Hence, Reliance Power/Jharkhand Integrated Power Ltd cannot be absolved of its responsibility of paying damages for non-achievement of milestones set for development of Kerandari B&C coal blocks," the notice, issued on Tuesday, said.

News Source: Economictimes