BHUBANESWAR: The State Government on Tuesday announced to provide separate feeder lines to Government hospitals to ensure uninterrupted power supply. The announcement came in the Assembly after members cutting across party lines expressed concern over frequent power cuts across the State even without any external disturbance with critical establishments like hospitals not free from it.
Replying to a discussion on demand for grants of the Energy Department, Energy Minister Dibya Shankar Mishra said capital expenditure to the tune of Rs 25,000 crore has been made in power sector in the last five years to improve the quality of electricity supply to consumers and reduce the aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) loss at the same time.
Admitting that the AT&C loss in the State is too high at 30 per cent, Mishra said the Government is making serious efforts to bring down the loss level by 3 per cent every fiscal. A smart metering project has taken up as part of the loss reduction measures.
In its endeavour to solve the low voltage problems faced by consumers, particularly in rural areas, and ensure uninterrupted supply of quality power, the State Government has already set up and charged 280 33/11 KV sub-stations. Construction of another 100 such sub-stations will be completed by September this year.
Assuring to look into the low voltage problem personally, the Minister requested all members of the Assembly to submit at least five proposals each for either up-gradation of existing sub-stations or establishment of new ones in their respective constituencies.
Criticising the State Government for its failure in power sector reforms, Opposition Chief Whip Mohan Majhi said the basic objective of providing quality power at an affordable cost to consumers has not been fulfilled even after more than two decades of the reforms.
Echoing similar concern, Mohammed Moquim of Congress said the ruling BJD has not kept its poll promises of providing free power to farmers and electrifying at least 10,000 hamlets. He also slammed the Government for the slow pace of underground cabling in the State Capital and non-start of the project in Cuttack city.
Complaining that field staff of the discoms are not responding to distress calls of consumers, Prasant Muduli of BJD suggested to ensure that all linesmen and field staff should be geo-tagged to find out if they are on duty or not.