Eyeing alternatives to get gas plants on auction table: Goyal

Minister of State with Independent Charge for Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy Piyush Goyal, in an interview to CNBC-TV18, said that the cancelled gas auction demonstrates that companies are willing to produce power at zero subsidies. The government, last week, had announced cancellation of third round of auction for regassified liquefied natural gas (LNG) for stranded power plants. The minister, however, added: “We have an empowered committee which is working to drop a new scheme of things to see how we can get these gas plants to come back on the bidding table.” Goyal also indicated that the government is looking at alternatives, which will ensure clean and more power through gas at affordable prices. Below is the verbatim transcript of Piyush Goyal's interview with Anshu Sharma on CNBC-TV18.Q: Tell us more about the gas auction cancelled last week.A: It was a great success of this government that we have been able to get the stranded gas plant back into operations. Bankers have been saved from potential significant distress and I am delighted that this auction has failed because it only demonstrates that everybody was happy to produce power with zero subsidies and therefore, there is no reason for me to be worried at all. Having said that, we are happy to look at alternates and we have an empowered committee which is working to drop a new scheme of things to see how we can get these gas plant to come back on the bidding table and we can offer gas and it can ensure availability of more power, clean power through gas at more affordable prices.Q: Since the companies are looking at zero subsidies from the government. Do you think they are willing to buy gas from international market? Would you be still looking to provide gas under the subsidy scheme in the next financial year?A: I have all options open. Gas prices do keep fluctuating and many of them may have contracted directly at the current prevailing low prices which is great because I am not looking to give them support. The support was only given when the prices were high, but if I can continue to support them and bring the price of power down, that will be a win-win because we want the consumers of India to benefit from lower prices and I am finding across the country, very little need to increase power tariffs now given the major initiatives that the Modi government has done particularly to bring down the cost of power through greater availability of domestic coal through increase availability of gas based power, through ensuring that transmission is available across the country particularly to south India because of which Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana have been able to significantly bring down their power purchase cost. So all these efforts have brought down the stress in the system and will help to keep a lower burden on the consumers. I was given to understand recently that even the Delhi consumers have benefited because of greater availability of domestic coal and reducing imported coal component, which is much more costly particularly when transported over long distances. So, everybody is benefiting from these efforts.Q: Commercial coal mining was a provision provided in the coal mining amendment last year but the government is still stuck on providing states to go ahead with commercial mining. What happens to private sector participation in the commercial mining side?A: We are open to that also but we will keep calibrating the timing based on the overall scenario, what level of bidding one can expect. These are after all natural resources of the people of India and Prime Minister Modi is clear that a fair price should be determined which will continue to serve the people of India. The price that comes in, will help the eastern states particularly Odisha, West Bengal, Jharkhand to get more funds to support their developmental activities. Looking at the current scenario and the depressed commodity prices, we do believe it is not the right time to start bidding it out to the public or to the private sector as yet. So to begin with, we are looking at the states taking on some of these mines, possibly starting work on them so that at least the market can get more coal at affordable prices and at the opportune moment we will look at private sector participation.