India to have power surplus in 2017

Piyush Goyal is the son of senior BJP leader Vedprakash Goyal, who was shipping minister in the Vajpayee Government and the National Treasurer of the BJP for over two decades.

Since 1984, he has occupied many important positions such as Member, National Executive, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha.

He was appointed as the National Campaign Incharge for the 1991 Lok Sabha elections.

Piyush Goyal is the Minister of State with Independent Charge for Power, Coal and New Renewable Energy in the Government of India and is currently a Member of Rajya Sabha.

He works as a CA and investment banker and advices banking professionals on management strategies and growth opportunities.

Goyal is the BJP treasurer and considered close to PM Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

Under the leadership of Power minister, Piyush Goyal, 253 Indian villages were electrified under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojna.

Solar power saw the highest capacity addition to 6,762 MW and wind power regained capacity of 3,500 MW.

Goyal also pushed power distribution reforms under the Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana.

Under his ministry, annual production of coal ramped up to 536 million tonnes.

Power Minister Piyush Goyal said that, ''the country can achieve 50% growth in electricity production upto 1.65 trillion units next year.''

Rs.1.11 lakh crore would be used for the technological upgradation of power infrastructure with the help of various schemes for rural and urban India.

According to Goyal, the Government is trying to ensure 24x7 power supply to each household by 2019.

Power Minister Piyush Goyal stated in the Rajya Sabha, that India would have surplus power generation in 2017.

He stated that this was possible because the Government cleared many long pending projects that were stuck in bureaucratic hurdles.

He said, based on the Load Generation Balance Report, India would achieve "1.1% surplus in energy and 2.6% surplus in peak."

Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal stated that the government is working on making agriculture pumps solar powered, to reduce the power consumption of farmers.

The government had already begun work by establishing the National Energy Efficient Agriculture Pumps Programme in this regard.

Goyal said "we are now mulling the possibility of introducing solar pumps," aiming to save 50 billion energy units annually.