VIJAYAWADA: Emphasising the need to ensure interruption-free power supply, minister for Energy Balineni Srinivasa Reddy has said the State government is determined to use energy bulletin as a watch guard on the overall power supply position and make it a powerful tool in the hands of people.
During a teleconference with officials on Sunday, the minister said the cost-effective and quality power supply with zero interruption would be instrumental in achieving industrial and agricultural growth and thereby, overall economic development of the State. In that direction, the government has laid special emphasis on uninterrupted power supply and implementation of Navaratnalu in the sector.
“The policy of the government is clear. It wants to generate power from various sources, including thermal, hydel, and renewable sources, but it must be cost-effective and promote growth in various sectors. At the same time, it wants to be transparent, hence the energy bulletin was introduced to let the people know the ground reality on power supply,” he the minister explained.
Stating that the energy bulletin, which was introduced in July, was yielding good results, energy secretary Nagulapalli Srikant suggested a five-point formula to make energy bulletin more effective and achieve the desired goals. “Ensuring total transparency, enhancing responsibility at all levels, increasing scope for public participation, developing a feedback mechanism and quick response to the queries of people will make the energy bulletin initiative more fruitful. This exercise will not only benefit the 1.67 crore domestic consumers but also the industrial sector,” he asserted.
Stating that the energy bulletin will put forth the facts pertaining to unavoidable interruptions/unexpected outages, if any, before the people, Srikant said it should also contain the details of district wise and feeder wise power supply, consumption, interruptions and directed the officials concerned to take steps in that direction.
The secretary cautioned officials of APTransco and power discoms about the anticipating increase in power demand in the coming days. He said the energy demand was anticipated to rise and touch around 185 million units in September itself from the existing 160 MU.
In fact, the energy demand reduced to around 148 MU in the first week of August due to rains. But, the demand may rise by roughly 30 MU in September as against the power demand in August. The demand for 181 MU was recorded as highest on August 12. The demand is expected to reach 185 MU to 190 MU in Sept.