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The West Bengal government has pumped in Rs 27,000 crore into the power sector since 2011 for developing generation, transmission, and distribution capacity, state Power Minister Arup Biswas said on Tuesday.
He said that further investments would be made in the next few years to increase the total power capacity from the current 9,521 MW to 13,689 MW, including thermal, solar, and hydel capacities.
Biswas told reporters that West Bengal has sufficient power to meet the demand.
The recent power cuts were due to the breakdown of distribution networks caused by storms and unpermitted draw of electricity by a section of retail consumers, he claimed.
The highest demand was recorded on June 8 of this year and was successfully met.
The minister's statement came following Leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari's allegation that the recent power cuts in the state have caused the sector to collapse.
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Biswas said the state has phased out one thermal power unit each at Kolaghat plant and another at Bandel due to regulatory compliance.
The minister also said that the state had created a fresh total thermal capacity of 1,250 MW in these 11 years and is building new capacities, including a 660 MW supercritical power plant at Sagardighi in Murshidabad.
Apart from generation, various transmission and distribution infrastructure have been developed by the Mamata Banerjee government in its past two terms since 2011, Biswas said.
The state has plans to build a 1,760 MW solar capacity, 1,000 MW from the Turga Pumped storage power plant, and receive 230 MW from Bhutan and 118 MW from Teesta hydel projects.
According to the minister, the subscriber base has increased from 80 lakh during the previous Left Front regime to 2.33 crore today, with demand soaring to 9,200 MW from 4,085 MW earlier.
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