New Delhi, February 5
Three regional states of Punjab, Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir today sought Centre’s intervention in solving the problems being faced by the local power generating companies as they expressed the hope of increasing the installed power generating capacity.

As the Centre said it had surpassed the targets set for the “Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana” (RGGVY) under the Bharat Nirman programme, Haryana’s Power Minister Capt Ajay Singh Yadav said the state government had taken initiatives to add generation capacity of about 5000 MW with commensurate investments in transmission and distribution.

Punjab’s Food Supplies, Consumer Affairs, Food Processing and IT Minister Adesh Partap Singh Kairon pointed out that the state has not only been able to bridge the demand gap by adding to generation capacity but was also making efforts to improve quality of power to consumers and setting up a robust grid.

Punjab has been able to create a state level 400KV Ring Main System with five 400 KV Grid Substations and about 1600 Ckt-KMs of 400 KV lines. There was a plan to add three more 400 KV Grid Sub Stations with about 400 Ckt-KMs in the ring main system, the minister said.

J&K Power Department said the state has planned a capacity addition of about 9036.55 MW. This addition shall be from 58 projects comprising 57 hydro and one geo-thermal project and includes the projects planned for execution in state sector, Central sector, private sector and joint venture.

Addressing the annual conference of state power ministers, Minister of State for Power Jyotiraditya Scindia said against a target of one lakh villages and 1.75 crore BPL households, the government has provided electricity to 1.04 lakh villages and provided free connections to 1.95 crore BPL households under the Rajiv Gandhi scheme.

The minister said the power sector today faces a paradox. There have been unprecedented achievements but still there existed unforeseen barriers that must be removed if the sector has to grow and contribute to the economic growth of the country and benefit the common man.

Emphasising on the need of providing electricity to all, the minister said the Ministry of Power has proposed the continuation of the Rajiv Gandhi scheme in the 12th Plan for covering all remaining villages and habitations, irrespective of population and to provide free electricity connections to remaining BPL households.

The three regional states complained about the quality of coal supplied by Coal India Limited or its subsidiaries.

They pointed out that coal quality billed by them was often found to be at variance with the quality of the same coal tested at the receiving end (power station). This resulted in financial loss to the power generation utilities.