Union Budget 2020-21: New initiatives welcomed by the energy sector

The Union Budget for 2020-21 announced a slew of incentives and reforms for the energy and power sector. Industry players share their views on the Budget.

“Allocating `22,000 crore for renewable and power sector is going to push for faster development and growth across sector. The announcement made by FM to replace energy meters with prepaid smart meters will further help in complete digitisation of the whole system and will help in bring about more financially healthier utilities. The FM has urged state governments to implement smart meters in the next three years and HPL being one of the leading manufacturers of smart meters sees this as a huge opportunity.”
Gautam Seth, Joint-Managing Director, HPL & Electric Power Ltd.

“Union Budget 2020’s infra focus is expected to provide a significant fillip to KEC. Allocation towards power and renewable energy and transport infrastructure, upgradation of stations and developing solar in railways, setting up of 100 new airports, 5 new smart cities and linking 1 lakh gram panchayats with BharatNet augurs well for our businesses.”
Vimal Kejriwal, MD & CEO, KEC International

“In our view, this is a very cogent budget, which touches upon every aspect of the electricity sector with an overall direct outlay of `22,000 crore. Supporting power generation in the renewable sector by proposing grid integration of solarised fallow/barren lands, grid connected solar pumps as well as large-scale solar power development on railway land along rail tracks. In the thermal power space, by suggesting the closure of older thermal power plants which do not meet the pollution control norms, it would lead to far better utilisation of newer generation capacity that otherwise is not being fully utilised. In the power distribution space, the revolutionary idea of replacing all conventional meters by prepaid smart meters would have a tectonic shift in the manner of doing business. In all, we believe that the Budget 2020 has delivered on the promise of long-term corrective action for the power sector in the country and is expected to revitalise the sector once again.”
Prabhajit Sarkar, MD & CEO of Power Exchange India Limited (PXIL)