New Delhi : Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha had a meeting on Thursday with Union Minister of Power and NRE R.K. Singh at Delhi.
Power Secretary, Alok Kumar and other senior officials of the Ministry of Power and New & Renewable Energy were also present. Various measures required to ensure uninterrupted power supply and improve power infrastructure in the Union Territory of J&K were discussed.
The Lt Governor requested higher power allocation to J&K. Union Minister of Power and NRE R.K. Singh assured to examine this request and take early action.
The Lt Governor also shared the efforts of the UT Government toward building up transmission and distribution infrastructure and steps taken to reduce the AT&C losses and improving the quality and reliability of power supply to the people. Union Minister of Power assured that the ministry will extend all possible assistance to ensure adequate availability of resources.
Meanwhile, the minister told parliament that electricity is a concurrent subject and supply/distribution of electricity to all the consumers of urban and rural areas falls primarily under the purview of the respective State Governments and/or State Power Utilities. Government of India supplements the efforts of the States through its various schemes including Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY), Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS) and Ujjwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY) to help them to achieve the objective of providing uninterrupted power supply to all households.
All the States and the Union Territories (UTs) have signed MoUs with the Central Government to ensure 24×7 power supply w.e.f. 1st April,2019 onwards. Many States and UTs claim to supply 24×7 power other than the planned outages and interruptions due to unforeseen events.
Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS) was launched in December, 2014 for Strengthening of sub-transmission and distribution networks in urban areas; Metering of distribution transformers/ feeders/ consumers in the urban areas; IT enablement works; Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP); Smart metering; Gas Insulated Sub-stations (GIS); and, Real Time Data Acquisition System (RT-DAS). Under the Scheme, Central funding was provided for the implementation of these works. Besides the aforesaid works, funds were also sanctioned by the Government for underground (UG) cabling and Aerial Bunched (AB) cables which helped in the reduction of Aggregate Technical & Commercial (AT&C) losses. All these distribution infrastructure works has supplemented the efforts of the Government to ensure 24×7 power to all.
Government of India have also launched the Reforms Based Result Linked Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS), with an outlay of Rs. 3,03,758 Crore and an estimated GBS of Rs.97,631 Crores from Central Government. The Scheme seeks to improve the operational efficiency and financial sustainability of all Discoms/Power Departments excluding private Discoms by providing conditional financial assistance to Discoms for strengthening of supply infrastructure and for installation of smart Meters in Pre-paid mode. (GNS)
