Electricity minister Bijendra Kumar Yadav today said that Bihar would be self-sufficent in power sector by August 2015 with availablity of 5300 MW as pledged by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's two years ago to the people of the state.
"We will ensure availability of power at 5300 MW by August 2015 through generation and other sources to fulfil the Chief Minister's pledge made at the Independence Day function last year that he will not go to the people to seek fresh mandate in 2015 if he failed to improve power scenario in Bihar", Yadav said while replying to the second supplementary demands for grants of various departments in 2013-14.
He said that the power situation in Bihar has shown improvement since 2005-06 when Bihar had 800 MW available at its disposal out of which only 550 MW was meant for consumers due to commitments to Nepal and railways.
There has been significant improvement in power scenario this year with the availability rising to 2300 MW during the festive season and the same will increase to 2600 MW by August 2014, the Energy Minister said.
He said that steps were being taken to strengthen transmission and distribution of infrastructure for which the centre has proposed to soften the norms for utilization of the MPLAD funds for construction of transmission infrastructure.
The local area development funds of the Bihar lawmakers too will be used for laying down transmission network in Bihar, Yadav said adding that the DPR for 27 districts has been formulated and construction work will begin from January this year after decision by the centre later this month.
He announced that a training centre each in North and South Bihar will be set up for skill development of power employees, while a transformer repair unit will come up in each district so that the consumers get uninterrupted power.
With the burden of exchequer ever increasing due to growing demand for power that has to be met by purchasing the commodity from the market, Yadav stressed on prevention of power theft and realisation of electricity bills from the consumers saying that every penny spent on purchase must be accounted for.
