Four Years of UDAY

On November 5, 2015, the union cabinet approved Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY). The scheme envisaged financial turnaround, operational improvement, reduction of cost of generation of power, development of renewable energy, and energy efficiency and conservation.

For financial turnaround, the states were required to take over 75 per cent of the discom debt as on September 30, 2015, out of which 50 per cent was to be done in FY 2015-16 and 25 per cent in FY 2016-17 through issuance of 10 to 15-year bonds with a moratorium period of up to 5 years. Such borrowings were not to be included for calculating fiscal deficit of the state.