Amid walkout by the Opposition Congress and a few Indpendents from Rajasthan Assembly, ruling BJP tonight announced 40,000 new connections to farmers and rural people in Rajasthan this year.
Replying a debate on Power and non-conventional energy sources which lasted for over five hours, the Minister of State for Energy Pushpendra Singh said 10000 Dhani (helmet) with a population of 100 people would also be provided power connections in the current year.
For addressing consumers' grievances, there would be a Central Control Room in each Discom, and to remove anomalies, a central software billing system would be worked out, MoS further assured legislators who participated in the debate cutting across the party lines.
Of the total power consumers, there were only 11 per cent agricultural customers and of which ony 42 per cent are using power regularly, he said.
Stressing that the power companies in the state running to a cumulative loss of Rs 77,453 cr, the MoS said the attempts were being made to reduce Transmission and Distribution (T&D) losses by effecting monitoring.
Under new Solar Energy Policy, solar parks with a capacity of 26000 MW power generation would come up in the state in next three years, he said.
However, Opposition MLAs of Congress, NPP, BSP, and Independents' to reduce the power tariff raised in February, the MoS kept revolving around the budgetary support and power companies' losses.
When the Opposition Congress members were not allowed to speak on the desired lines they staged the stormy walkout.
