 "Budget 2016: Govt to spend Rs 5,500 cr on crop insurance scheme")
The Union Budget has proposed a massive increase in the Plan expenditure of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) to Rs 5,000 crore for the next fiscal.
The revised estimate of the Plan expenditure for the current fiscal is Rs 246.53 crore, as against the budgetary estimate of Rs 287.67 crore announced last year.
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The government has also proposed to increase Plan expenditure for the Power Ministry by over 50% to Rs 12,200 crore for the next fiscal as compared to revised estimates of Rs 8,084.37 crore in this financial year.
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Last year, the government had provided Plan expenditure of Rs 6,799.74 crore for the Power Ministry for this fiscal.
In his budget speech on Monday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that Rs 8,500 crore has been provided for Deendayal Upadhayaya Gram Jyoti Yojna and Integrated Power Development Schemes.
"As on February 23, 2016, 5,542 villages have been electrified. This is more than the total combined achievement of previous three years," Jaitley said. "The government is committed to achieve 100% village electrification by May 1, 2018."
Under Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojna (DDUGJY), the Centre wants to electrify all the villages through grid connected and off-grid solutions.
Besides, it envisages separation of non-agriculture and agriculture feeders facilitating judicious rostering of electricity supply.
Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS) aims at strengthening sub-transmission network, metering, customer care services, IT application, provisioning of solar panels and completion of the ongoing works of Restructured Accelerated Power Development and completion of the Reforms Programme.
The Budget Memorandum further said that, "For power sector, additional depreciation of 20% is allowed in respect of the cost of new plant or machinery acquired and installed by certain assessees engaged in the business of generation and distribution of power."
"This depreciation allowance is over and above the deduction allowed for general depreciation. Under the existing provisions, the benefit of additional depreciation is not available on the new machinery or plant installed by an assessee engaged in the business of transmission of power," it said.
"In order to rationalise the incentive of power sector , it is proposed to amend this section so as to provide that an assessee shall also be allowed additional depreciation at the rate of 20% of actual cost of new machinery or plant acquired and installed in a previous year," it said.
This amendment will take effect from April 1, 2017 and will, accordingly, apply in relation to the assessment year 2017-18 and subsequent assessment years, it added.
