India Needs Investments Worth Rs 15 Lakh Crore To Achieve ‘Electricity For All By 2019’

In order to accomplish its mission of ‘electricity for all by 2019,’ the government is targeting investments of Rs 15 lakh crore ($250 billion) in the power sector, Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal has said.

“We are expecting around $250 billion investments in the next four to five years... About $100 billion will be in the renewable energy,” Goyal said while speaking at the India Economic Summit organised by the World Economic Forum and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). The investments would boost power generation and help the government provide electricity to every household by 2019, he said.

The minister said that the government is looking to increase its power generation capacity in the renewable energy sector to 1,00,000 MW by 2022 from 31,833.01 MW at present.

“Efforts are also being made to increase coal production, strengthen transmission network and get back gas-based power plants on stream. India's total power consumption would double to 2 trillion units by 2019 and majority of investments would come from the private sector, though the government would also invest more,” he said.