Union Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal and New and Renewable Energy Shri Piyush Goyal today launched ‘URJA’- Urban Jyoti Abhiyaan Mobile app on the side-lines of ongoing two day Conference of Power Ministers at Cansaulim in South Goa. The app is developed by Power Finance Corporation on behalf of Ministry of Power for Urban Power Distribution Sector to enhance consumer connect with the Urban Power Distribution sector by providing information of IT enabled towns on important parameters which concern the consumers like outage information, timely release of connections, addressing complaints, power reliability etc.
The app will work as manifestation of Prime Minister’s principle of good governance i.e. People focus, co-operative federalism.
The Union Minister also launched the Pradhan Mantri UJALA (Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LED for all) Yojana in Goa with a target of replacing approximately 15 lakh LED bulbs, impacting nearly 5 lakh households. Under the scheme, consumers are entitled to 3 LED bulbs of 9W each at a subsidized rate of Rs.25/, as against a market price of Rs.300-350.
The Scheme launched in the distinguished presence of Goa Chief Minister Shri Laxmikant Parsekar will help save over 78 million kwh every year in the state and about Rs.850-1000 on annual electricity bills.
Besides, the Union Minister also launched “Vidyut Pravah” App at the event.
Speaking on the occasion the Minister said the scope of “DEEP” (Discovery of Efficient Electricity Price) e-Bidding and e-Reverse Auction Portal has been further expanded by covering banking mechanism and the medium term procurement of Power. The Union Minister said the Government will soon start 100 percent smart metering to curb the menace of power theft. He said currently there is a loss around 24 to 26 percent due to theft of Power.
The two day conference is expected to deliberate on Coal related issues, Hydropower policy, transmission related issues behind other issues.