Elders deliberate on Power ministry's functioning

Rajya Sabha today deliberated on the functioning of the Power ministry especially in areas like rural electrification, the need to cut transmission and distribution losses and ways to generate more electricity to meet increasing demand.
Initiating a discussion, P Bhattacharya (Congress) said power is a most important factor for the development of a country and that is why the UPA government had paid a lot of attention to it and made substantial progress.
He said a lot needs to be done in areas like rural electrification. Bhattacharaya said there were instances where electric poles were put up in rural areas but real power had not come. We need "real bijli" in villages, he said.

He said he had heard that the government is contemplating selling electricity to Pakistan and wanted to know whether it is true.
He also said it had been reported that an industrial house is planning to set up a big power plant in Kutch, adding he did not know how far it is true.
V P Singh Badnore (BJP) said many villages do not get more than 8 hours of electricity everyday. He said the situation is such that many State Electricity Boards are making losses and the Centre has to bail them out.

He suggested that functioning of the Electricity Act 2003 should be reviewed. He also suggested that areas like Solar energy, generation of power from waste, lignite, nuclear energy should be explored.

Avtar Singh Karimpuri (BSP) said to make the country self sufficient in power sector, emphasis should be laid on cutting transmission and distribution losses.
He also raised the issue of representation of SCs, STs and OBCs in entities under the power ministries saying in many organisations employees belonging to these sections were under-represented.