Power Grid to raise Rs 10,000 crore, board meeting on July 3

Power Grid Corporation of India said on Friday it plans to raise about Rs 10,000 crore from the domestic market through the issue of bonds in a bid to fund its capital requirements. The company's board of directors will meet on July 3 to consider the plan of issuing secured I unsecured, non-convertible, non-cumulative I cumulative, redeemable, taxable I tax-free debentures I bond under private placement during the financial year 2020-21 in up to 20 tranches I offer, it said in a statement.

Power Grid is a government-owned electric utility company and transmits about 50 per cent of the total power generated in India on its network. It recently formed a joint venture company with public sector utility NTPC to accelerate the pace of power distribution reforms. Both companies will have a 50:50 equity base in the National Electricity Distribution Company.

This paves way for NTPC, a leading power generator, and Power Grid, which owns the country's largest power transmission network, to get into consumer electricity supply business. The development comes at a time when the government's ambitious scheme UDAY (Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana) has been declared as a failure by several agencies.