Power and renewable energy minister R K Singh said the country needs coal-based plants for now and he is not in favour of shutting them down immediately. He also said that the much-awaited tariff policy could soon be finalised with home minister Amit Shah-led group of ministers agreeing to most of the recommendations at its first meeting on Friday.

"If you tell me to shut down coal based-plants tomorrow, I will not do it because it is important for me to raise standards of our people," Singh said on Saturday at The Economic Times Global Business Summit. His statement comes on the back of Chief Justice of India SA Bobde's remark that all thermal power plants in the country should be shut down to check air pollution.

Singh said India's per capita electricity consumption is among the lowest in the world and come June the country's power demand was expected to grow putting pressure on the coal-fired projects.

"The proposed tariff policy has been received well by the group of ministers and I expect the group to meet just once more to finalise the draft that will then be taken to Cabinet for approval," Singh said.

Speaking at a session on National Infrastructure Pipeline - Can this mega push revive the Indian Economy?' he said that all stressed power plants are expected to come on stream. “We are adding renewables but there is space for coal as we are adding new consumers,” adding the country registered 26.4 lakh new consumers under Saubhagya.

Of the 32 odd stressed power plant, 14 have come out of stress. With coal availability, 5000-mw power purchase agreement aggregation schemes, and new connections, the demand for electricity is likely to increase, Singh said.

He also said that the government will bring out a new scheme to revive state-owned power distribution companies under which the grants, aids and finance from Power Finance Corp and Rural Electrification Corp will be available only to states that undertake trajectories to reduce commercial losses to 12%.