Coal India will continue to remain a single entity: Goyal

Union minister Piyush Goyal on Saturday said state-run Coal India will continue to remain a single entity and will not be allowed to split further.

The government's policy think-tank NITI Aayog has recently recommended breaking up of Coal India into various subsidiaries.

"It is not at all advisable and we are not taking up that recommendation at all. Coal India will continue to be one entity," Goyal said when asked about the Niti Aayog's recommendation of splitting the 'Maharatna' company.

Goyal, who is the minister of state for power, coal, new and renewable energy (independent charge) was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an energy summit here on Saturday.

NITI Aayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya had recently said that unbundling of Coal India will create competition and increase transparency in pricing.

It is part of the National Energy Plan which NITI Aayog is going to finalise by July.

Meanwhile, Union minister Piyush Goyal also said that the Centre will soon come out with a scheme to revive various stalled power plants in the country. The broad polices to make stranded projects viable was decided in a meeting between the Ministry of Power and lenders earlier this week.

"We have had a discussion with lenders. We have broadly worked out the contours of a scheme under which we will be able to complete all the stalled projects which are half way through," Goyal,

who is minister of state for power, coal, new and renewable energy (independent charge) told reporters on the sidelines of an energy summit organised here on Saturday.

Goyal said the country is facing a situation of many projects having being initiated despite the fact that the demand growth at a particular trajectory did not warrant that.

"Therefore, we have nearly 20,000-25,000 mega watt of thermal power projects which are either stressed or potentially going to be stranded," Goyal said.

He said the government has launched a coal linkage policy called Scheme to Harness and Allocate Koyla (Coal) Transparently in India (Shakti), which will help many power projects to become viable.

"Those which are not viable even after that scheme (Shakti), we are looking at a comprehensive solution which will take care of them going forward with the collective efforts of the bankers, the national utilities and the financial institutions," the minister said.

He said in the last three years, steps have been taken to expand power transmission and also to commission 50,000 mega watt capacity power plants, which were stalled.

In order to financially turnaround electricity distribution companies (Discoms), the government in 2015 had already launched a Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (Uday) scheme.

"The Uday scheme focuses in strengthening all the discoms and I have a strong belief that in next two to two-and -a-half years, all discoms will be profitable," he added.