In a first, India to have power surplus in FY17: Piyush Goyal

India is expected to have surplus power supply in 2016-17, Power Minister Piyush Goyal told the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. 

He was responding to a question on the power situation in the country. 

He said, "according to the Load Generation Balance Report (LGBR) for the yera 2016-17 published by theCentral Electricity Authority (CEA), surplus power is anticipated for 1.1% in terms of energy and 2.6% in terms of peak."

This is the first time that India will witness a power surplus situation, he told the Upper House.

Power demand in the last two years grew by 7.03%https://t.co/cMeslyr240

— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) August 2, 2016

While explaining the surplus, Goyal said, it wasn't possible because demand has gone down, instead, the surplus power generation has been possible despite a 7.03% growth in demand in the last two years against 5.65% in the earlier ten years. 

"Surplus power has been possible because we have been able to unclog the system, and get a lot of projects working that were stuck due to environmental clearances, financial difficulties. 

"We have got them all back on track and increased the installed capacity significantly," he said. 

In FY16, peak hour deficit stood at 3.2% and non-peak hour deficit was 2.1%.