Oppn slams Rajasthan govt over power cuts, increase in surcharges
JAIPUR: The Assembly on Monday witnessed an uproarious situation, with the Opposition cornering the government over power cuts and the increase in fuel surcharges on electricity bills.
Leader of the Opposition Tikaram Jully accused the energy minister Hiralal Nagar of misleading the House regarding power shortages. He stated that the minister claimed 22 hours of electricity supply in the state, despite actual reductions of 25% in May and 28% in June.
“Where is this additional supply coming from?” he questioned. In response, Nagar said, “We are meeting the demand by purchasing additional electricity.”
A row erupted in the Assembly on the issue of electricity, once during the question hour and twice during the Zero Hour.
During the Zero hour, Congress MLA Amit Chachan raised the issue through an adjournment motion on fuel surcharge. “The power cuts take place for 10-15 hours, and the fuel charge has been increased. The people are suffering and their pockets are burdened. The government has ended the pro-people schemes of the Congress government, which were providing relief,” he said.
Leader of Opposition Tikaram Jully said that the government has again put the burden of fuel surcharge on the people and it should be abolished.
The issue was raised again by Congress MLA Manish Yadav through a parchi (special mention). “The people are tired of the BJP and they will not forgive them,” said Yadav. “BJP have their government in Chhattisgarh but the number of coal racks have been reduced to 13 from 26 leading to power crisis.”
The Congress demanded a day-long discussion on the power situation. Speaker Vasudev Devnani agreed to the demand, saying the date will be fixed in the business advisory committee meeting.
Replying to a question during Question Hour, Nagar said that due to mismanagement by the previous Congress government, people of the state are forced to face power cuts.
Despite this, the state government is constantly making efforts for uninterrupted supply of electricity through various measures including increase in production in the state.
He said there has been an unexpected increase of 25 to 28% in the demand for electricity in 2024 as compared to last year. Despite efforts like ensuring the availability of coal to the thermal power plants of the state, increasing the plant load factor (PLF) to 74%, purchasing electricity from the energy exchange to meet the night time demand and allocating 150 MW of electricity from central power plants, load shedding of two to three hours has to be done at night to meet this increased demand.
“During the previous government, the load factor of the thermal power plants of the state was only 49.82% in April 2019, 58.89% in May and 67.62% in June. It has increased to 72.76% in April 2024, 71.98% in May and 73.64% in June during the current government,” said the energy minister.
He informed the Assembly that due to heat wave conditions this year, the average electricity consumption in the month of May was 331.8 million units per day, which is 25% more than the same month last year. Similarly, the average electricity consumption in the month of June was 343.8 million units.