Uttar Pradesh Sets Its Eyes On Providing 24x7 Affordable Power For All By October 2018

The power sector in Uttar Pradesh is likely to be revamped in the next 24 months. The “marathon meeting” between Union Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal, New & Renewable Energy and Mines, Piyush Goyal, and Uttar Pradesh’s Minister of Energy, Shrikant Sharma, along with senior officers of the state’s power department, focussed on drawing up a roadmap for the revamp, according to a government press release.

Goyal spoke of introducing a power revolution in the state,

The state’s power department, revealed Sharma, aims to provide 24x7 affordable quality power for all – an aim that Goyal is no stranger to. Sharma told Goyal that a roadmap was being prepared to achieve this goal. During the meeting, it was also decided that Uttar Pradesh would sign the “power for all” document with the centre by mid-April 2017.

The Union power minister emphasised that corruption ought not to be tolerated in the state and the power sector be made efficient by eliminating power theft through strict monitoring. He also stressed on ensuring speedy implementation of ground-level electrification so that real progress on the ground was seen.

Among the key decisions taken at the meeting include:

- Free electricity connections to urban and rural BPL households

- State-wide campaign against power theft

- Reviewing and simplifying the tariff order to bring lower tariffs across the value chain

- Weekly ground-level review of the progress of projects being implemented in the state

- Waving off of interests on electricity dues and provision of option of equated monthly instalments to pay off the principal amounts

- Removing bottlenecks in the intra-state power transmission network so as to meet the power demand during this summer season

- Devising a strategy to replace all the old thermal power plants in the state with Super Critical Power Plants

- Engaging in 100 per cent coal linkage swap so as to bring down the power costs