With the goods and service tax regime becoming a reality soon, states will have to look at newer ways of attracting investment since excise duty concessions will be ruled out. Piyush Goyal, Union minister for power, renewable energy and mines, thinks investment can be promoted by offering cheap power and land, besides providing ease of doing business. In an interview with Jyoti Mukul and Shreya Jai, Goyal said: “This government’s focus is on ensuring that whoever invests gets a clean and clear predictable regime.”
In the power sector, it is not the end of the road for coal capacity. The addition in generation capacity in conventional power would not only come from replacing plants older than 25 years but also through ultra-mega power plants (UMPPs). Bidding documents for a new set of UMPPs are being finalised. Goyal expects companies to bid low and realistic tariffs.
The rate of Rs 3 a unit being offered for solar power over the next 25 years offered energy security at affordable rates, he said. Coal power during that period could go up to as high as Rs 10, he said. On whether viability gap funding currently available to solar power needs to continue, Goyal said, “We are calibrating.” Part of this sum could be diverted to promote manufacturing, he said.
After successfully managing to get scale into solar power generation, the emphasis would now be on promoting domestic manufacturing for solar, especially wafers. “The manufacturing capacity that came earlier was not viable because it was very small in scale,” he said.