"I don't see any power tariff going up. The impact of additional coal cess is barely 12 paisa per unit and in the whole context may be Rs 6,000-7,000 crore in a year but saving of UDAY scheme of Rs 1.8 lakh crore is far more than that," Power Minister Piyush Goyal said.
Under the UDAY scheme meant for the revival of debt ridden discoms, state are taking 75 per cent of the debt and issue bonds to pare loans. The discoms will issue state guaranteed bonds for remaining loans to repay the debt.
The budget has proposed to rename Clean Energy Cess' levied on coal, lignite and peat as 'Clean Environment Cess' and its incidence has been increased to Rs 400 per tonne, from Rs 200 per tonne.
Goyal was of the view that this will help government garnering money for environment friendly project like solar energy.
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He said the Budget has created stronger foundation to help take off projects like Skill India and Jan Dhan Yojana to next level to help the poor.
He said there are people who trying to project that we are not doing enough for rural India.
The minister said the highest number of 300 villages were electrified last week and government will electrify 7,000 villages by March end which would be nearly 37 per cent of total target of 18,452 villages by May 1, 2018.
Goyal expressed hope that all unelectrified villages will be electrified by the end of 2017 and every home will get power by 2018.