PATNA: The Bihar government contradicted Union Power minister Piyush Goyal's statement that 98 per cent of electricity for domestic use in the state is supplied by the Central government.
Stating that Goyal's statement was "astonishing" and "far from the fact", Bihar Energy Minister Vijendra Prasad Yadav said, actually 76 per cent of electricity in the peak hour is supplied by the Centre.
Against a total allocation of 2633 MW, only 2000 MW is being supplied presently, he said in reply after Goyal's assertion here yesterday. The fact is that there is no distribution system of the
Central government, therefore, electricity produced by Central government has to be allotted to different states according to a fixed formula, the Bihar Energy minister said.
"It is worth mentioning that electricity supplied by the Central government is not free and it is purchased by the state government," Yadav said. He also contradicted Goyal's statement that
Transmission and Distribution loss is as high as 54 per cent and that the electricity bill for honest payers gets doubled because of this.
"The Transmission and Distribution losses including the commercial one is below 40 per cent in Bihar," Yadav said.
Higher value of T&D losses is primarily because of large scale extension of distribution network in rural areas in connection with electrification projects of unelectrified villages during recent years, he said.
After completion of ongoing schemes under special plan primarily meant for system strengthening work, there will be substantial reduction in T&D losses, he said. "This T&D loss is not transferred to consumers due to support from the state government and as such has no impact on the electricity bills," the state Energy minister said.
As far as generation is concerned, a lot of initiative by the state government have been taken during the last 10 years, he said.
As part of the overall strategy, three MoUs have been signed for setting up three thermal plants (2x660 MW each).
Despite signing of MoUs two years back, the Centre is yet to give clearance for allotment of 85 per cent of power to government of Bihar, he said adding the setting up of special purpose vehicle for Ultra Mega Power Project at Banka is pending with Government of India.