The World Bank has evinced keen interest in assisting the State in its efforts to bridge the demand supply gap of power through harnessing renewable energy sources.
A team of World Bank officials held detailed discussions with the Energy Department officials on Thursday to get first hand information about the measures initiated by the State government in respect of promoting solar energy and uninterrupted power supply to key sectors under the Power For All programme.
The World Bank team is understood to have discussed transmission and distribution losses and the measures like high voltage distribution system being put in place to minimise the technical losses.
Senior officials of the Energy Department said the WB team was satisfied with the presentation made by the power utilities on the existing situation and the steps that had been initiated in the recent past to overcome power shortages.
“The World Bank representatives were satisfied and wanted us to put forward concrete proposals through the State government for necessary assistance,” a senior official told The Hindu .
Though senior officials refused to hazard a guess on the scale of assistance that would be sought from the World Bank, sources said a strong pitch would be made to seek an assistance of close to $ 1 billion.
Relief to StateThe development comes as a relief to the State government which is pitching hard for promotion of renewable energy sources to make the State power surplus.
Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, in a white paper released on the state of affairs in power sector expressed concern that the energy sector had been neglected over the past one decade.