Within a month of taking charge as the Chief Minister of power-starved state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), Yogi Adiyanath has transformed the state into a zero-shortage one, the Economic Times has reported. According to the daily, the state did not face power shortage in the month of April despite a 20 per cent rise in power consumption.

Between March and April, power consumption in UP rose from 265 million units (MU) per day to 320 MU. Normally, such a drastic increase in consumption should have made power outages longer than before. But this did not happen.

Data released by National Load Despatch Centre suggests that there was no gap between demand and supply position in this period. The government, therefore, had made sure that it matches the supply with demand.

A survey conducted in Noida and Ghaziaband revealed that although there were power-cuts, the duration of blackouts was much shorter than before. According to officials from the electricity department, these outages were a result of local faults and not load-shedding.

The change has come for two reason. One, the state is buying 1,500 MW through exchanges and bilateral deals at lesser prices. Two, the government has managed to bring some new transmission links online, mostly in Western Uttar Pradesh.

Adityanath has also signed the ‘Power For All’ pact with the centre in order to make the state energy efficient by 2018, and to ensure that all the villages in the state have power supply by 2019. UP was the only state that was not party to this agreement.

Energy Starved

Get Swarajya in your inbox.