On February 23, 2015, the government had suspended Shashi Shanker, Director (Technical and Field Services) of Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) in a tender matter that was being investigated by the vigilance wing. However, after sometime, as per the Supreme Court’s general observation that a suspended officer should be reinstated if the agency fails […]
Tariffs for solar power in Tamil Nadu touched Rs 3.47 per unit in reverse-auctions held on July 1, 2017. The biddings were done for 1,500 MW solar plants against which 25 entities participated offering a total capacity of 2,673 MW. The orders shall be restricted to the first 18 firms only. State-owned NLC India Ltd, […]
Power distribution states have started showing improvements in their financials after the adoption of Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojna (UDAY). The losses are coming down while the gap between Aggregate Rate of Realisation (ARR) and Aggregate Cost of Supply (ACS) is also reducing.
For increasing coal production & competitive coal pricing, the NITI Aayog in its draft National Energy Policy (NEP) has said that Coal India Ltd (CIL) should be split into seven units, and the government should allow commercial mining by private companies. Terming the present pricing system of coal as Opaque Coal Economy, it has also […]
Hydropower projects of 13,363 MW capacity are stranded at various stages of development and reported a cost overrun of Rs 52,697 crore, says a study by Assocham-PwC titled “Accelerating hydropower development in India for sustainable energy security.” The report has suggested measures for improving investment in hydropower sector.
On July 3, 2017, a two judge division bench of the Delhi High Court dismissed budget carrier SpiceJet and its co-founder Ajay Singh’s appeals against an earlier single-judge order asking them to pay Rs 579 crore to Sun Group chief Kalanithi Maran and his KAL Airways as interim relief in a share transfer dispute. The […]
An Indian consortium led by ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) is willing to spend as much as $11 bn to develop a giant Iranian natural gas field and build the infrastructure to export the fuel as long as the Persian Gulf nation guarantees a “reasonable return” on the project.
On June 28, 2017, the government gave in-principle approval for disinvesting stake in Air India. The government has set up a group of ministers (GoM), headed by union finance minister Arun Jaitley, which will work out the details. Some of the issues that the GoM will deliberate upon are extent of sale, how to tackle […]
On May 29, 2017 the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered three cases (FIRs) and one preliminary enquiry (PE) in the wake of the order of January 05, 2017 of the apex court passed in a PIL filed by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation and led by lawyer Prashant Bhushan. This PIL had […]
In what could end years of fuel crisis for several private-sector power plants and put their stranded / upcoming capacities into productive use, the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved a new auction-based coal linkage policy.
The BJP led Uttar Pradesh government aims to provide affordable electricity to 1.86 crore unconnected houses by October 2018. For this, Power Finance Corporation has offered a Rs 3,600 crore loan to four distribution companies of the state to help them lay infrastructure for new connections in rural areas.
Come the midnight of June 30, 2017, the government will introduce the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime. In this article we will analyse the impact of this regime on the energy sector.
