Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal has proposed formalising the power connectivity of households that have illegal electricity connections in a meeting with State governments on Wednesday. The Minister also revealed that about 650 villages that had been electrified recently were, in fact, uninhabited.
About 4,100 villages are officially pending under the rural electrification programme and while some States have found more revenue villages where electrification hasn’t happened, Mr Goyal said it was more surprising that there were villages that are officially electrified but have no residents.
“That there are uninhabited villages that are on revenue records and proposals were sent to me for electrifying them that I have approved and funds were sanctioned. This very surprising to me and we have now found that 650 villages were found to be uninhabited across the country,” he said.
“This is a very serious issue. I am flagging this because similar issues are coming up in household electrification also... How many households are actually deprived of electricity? Are some households those that get it illegally? We need to formalise those immediately and include them in the official connection list,” the Minister said in a conference with State representatives.
The village electrification programme, the Minister conceded, was facing problems in a few States due to slow tendering processes. It was also affected due to Left Wing extremism in a couple of States.
“Yesterday, I spoke to three to four chief ministers where paperwork is getting delayed. The Power secretary shall speak to the Home secretary to see if States (affected by Maoist activities) can be helped,” Mr Goyal said.
Arguing that transparency has brought down tariffs as well as corruption, the Minister cited the example of wind power where auctions for just 1000 Mw have yielded a bid of Rs 3.46 per unit, compared to over Rs 5 per unit earlier. “It’s worth wondering where the rest of the money used to go. In wind power, there’s been no major change in technology that the price should go down by half or 40%. We must think over this,” he said.
Uttar Pradesh Power Minister Shrikant Sharma told Mr Goyal that the State has begun talks with the electricity regulator to see if it is possible to offer cheap power for attracting industry. “Can new enterprises or those expanding can they be given a fixed tariff that can be determined for ten years, can we give such an incentive to attract industry?” Mr Goyal said about the newly elected U.P. government’s plans.
