Modi's $2.5 Billion Power Plan May Stumble on Ailing Buyers
- Discoms need operational freedom for plan’s success: CLSA
- Power-for-all plan can boost electricity demand: Deutsche Bank
Workers connect electricity cables to a transmission pole during an implementation program by the Rural Electrification Corp. in the village of Manpur Kulchaura, Uttar Pradesh, India, on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2017.
Photographer: Prashanth Vishwanathan/BloombergThe success of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious plan to electrify all households in India by December 2018 faces a familiar hurdle: the money-losing state power retailers.
Modi earlier this week announced the government will spend 163.2 billion rupees ($2.5 billion) to provide electricity connections to every home in India by the end of next year, ahead of an earlier deadline of March 2019. The bulk of the cost for providing equipment such as power cables and electricity meters to every poor household will be borne by the federal government and partly by the states and the power retailer.