Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) chairman and managing director M Gopalakrishna told reporters here yesterday that since the Karnataka State Electricity Board neglected its systems in the past, it now needed to raise funds worth Rs 18,000 crore to improve its infrastructure.
They would have to work out funds either from various organisations, increase their tariffs or cut down line losses. If the infrastructure is improved, stable and uninterrupted power supply to the rural areas is possible, he said. Rural Electrification Corporation had already disbursed Rs 65 crore to KEB under the systems improvement programme.
It has urged the state electricity boards to exploit the renewable and local sources of energy to augment power supply in the rural areas.
Rural Electrification Corporation has sanctioned 65 projects with a loan outlay of Rs 93 crore under the conservation of energy network system improvement scheme.
Guidelines have been submitted to the state electricity boards to identify the villages, where solar, wind, mini-hydel and hybrid system can be locally harnessed.
Due to RECs sustained efforts, 86 per cent of the villages in this country have access to electricity compared with just 13 per cent in 1969.
About 5.02 lakh villages out of the total of 5.87 lakh now have electricity. Thirteen states have already achieved 100 per cent electrification.