‘YOGI GOVT SHOWED WILL TO CURB POWER PILFERAGE’

LUCKNOW: The Yogi government appeared to be paying due attention to the power sector from day one to achieve the goal of providing 24X7 electricity to every household by March 2019.

Within days of taking office, the new government signed the long-pending ‘power for all’ agreement with the Centre to achieve the same target and only a few days before completing one year in office, it decided to hand over the electricity distribution of five cities to private franchisees.

The government, as UPPCL chairman Alok Kumar said, showed the political will to check power theft and gave a free hand to the UPPCL to deal with power pilferers.

“We have full freedom to work and deliver,” he said.

The power supply scene remained bright for most part of the year except in summer when there was some crisis largely due to inadequate capacity of transmission lines to wheel electricity from power plants to the distribution network. And the approaching summer will again put the government to test.

The UPPCL is providing connections to electrify all 1.75 crore households which are without electricity by March 2019 and this is being seen as a big challenge.

The government’s one year tenure, however, also witnessed an unprecedented power tariff hike especially for the rural domestic consumers and farmers drawing criticism.

It also failed to appoint the chairman and two members in the UP Electricity Commission (UPERC) which has been functioning with a single member for more than six months now.

‘AN UNPRECEDENTED POWER TARIFF HIKE ESPECIALLY FOR THE RURAL DOMESTIC CONSUMERS AND FARMERS IS DRAWING CRITICISM’