Despite politics, UP shines bright on the power front
Uttar Pradesh does remain the country’s most power-starved state, only second to Jammu & Kashmir even today. But at the same time, it is also true that the power situation during election time was never as bright in the state in the recent decades as this time, even as electricity emerged as a poll issue, albeit in a different context, after the polls were halfway through..
The credit for the better power scene can, of course, be given to the Akhilesh Yadav government that made sustained efforts to improve the situation from day one, to the Modi government that has been providing UP the largest ever share of power from the Central pool because of enhanced generation and also to the Mayawati government that laid foundations of many thermal power plants between 2007 and 2012 with some of them producing electricity now. Statistics are loudly proclaiming that there has been a zero demand-supply gap in UP since November last year, with even villages getting power supply for 18 hours a day—a rare feat considering the situation in the previous years when even cities did not get that much electricity. Power authorities claim this has nothing to do with the elections. Better power supply according to them will continue. “Presently, we are supplying 18 hours power to villages, 20 hours to tehsil headquarters and 24 hours to district and division headquarters,” director, UP state load dispatch centre, Ram Swarath claimed.
He said power was abundantly available because of several new thermal plants starting generation . “Quite often the thermal plants have to be temporarily shut down because of power availability overshooting demand and we expect the situation to remain good in the summers as well,” he said . An analysis of the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) statistics , shows that UP has been able to meet the restricted demand (demand against scheduled hours of power supply) for last four months without having to resort to extra load shedding.
The CEA’s latest report on state-wise power supply shows that there was no peak demandsupply gap in UP during January. The state experienced a demand for 14,344 MW of power in January and it met the full demand with no emergency rostering at all. The same was the situation in December, and November 2016 . .
Contrast the situation with the last assembly elections five years ago. The Northern Regional Load Dispatch Centre (NRLDC) data reveals that the demand-supply gap between November 2011 and February 2012 was as huge as anywhere between 1,000 MW and 2,500 MW while the demand was merely around 8,000 MW against the whopping 14,000 MW during the current poll season.
The Akhilesh government made an announcement for supplying 18 hours power to villages and 22-24 hours to cities from October end in 2016, having pumped in massive funds in the generation, transmission and distribution sectors. The UP Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) has been able to maintain the power supply schedule ever since. “However, the coming summers when the demand will go up significantly will be the litmus test ,” sources said. Today, UP is producing more than 8,000 MW of power on its own while the Centre is providing another 4,000 MW to 5,000 MW of electricity to the state, a share which is the highest ever in recent years. “Besides, power is abundantly available at an affordable rate with the national energy exchange and the state can buy the same if so required,” sources pointed out.