Government fixes target of electrifying 7,000 villages by March

New Delhi: Centre has fixed a target of electrifying 7,000 un-electrified villages by March-end, Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said.

"The village electrification target for 2015-16 was 2,800 villages, which I set to 5,800. Now my officials told me that they would be able to electrify 7,000 villages by March end. I'm sure that we would be able to achieve this target," Goyal said.

Centre has already electrified 5,542 villages out of the total 18,452 un-electrified villages so far, he added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his Independence Day speech, in 2015, had set a target of electrifying 18,452 villages in one thousand days, that is by May 1, 2018. On Tuesday, government said 5,537 villages have been electrified in the current fiscal so far under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojna (DDUGJY).

On the all-time-low solar power tariff of Rs 4.34 per unit, Goyal said, "I think that this price of solar power is reasonable."

In February, solar power tariffs fell to an all-time low, with Finland-based energy firm Fortum Finnsurya Energy quoting Rs 4.34 a unit to bag the mandate to set up a 70-mw solar plant under NTPC's Bhadla Solar Park tender.

Before this, the solar power tariff had touched Rs 4.63 per unit in November last year, following aggressive bidding by the US-based SunEdison, the world's biggest developer of renewable energy power plants.