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As many states battled with power cuts in May, the Joint Secretary in the Power Ministry Arun Kumar Verma has said that the Centre cannot guarantee power supply to all villages. He said that it is the responsibility of the State’s power distribution companies.
As per a report in The Hindu, Jharkhand had around 95 hours of power cuts in May, followed by Jammu and Kashmir with around 36 hours and Haryana with a little more than 24 hours. Talking to the paper, Verma said that the Centre is responsible to connect all households and villages to the power grid. It can also provide alternative sources of electricity but cannot guarantee power supply to all villages. This needs to be ensured by the state discoms.
Recently, the Centre had claimed that it had completed the electrification of all villages and 83 percent of all households in the country. There were also claims made of completing the electrification of all households by 2019.
However, in an analysis done by the paper, it was found that in a few cases, infrastructure like cables, transformers, etc, were stolen within days of being installed. So, the village was connected, on paper, but un-electrified in reality. Also, in many villages, power was supplied only for a few hours every day.
“It is not our job to go and check every village whether the infrastructure is still there or if they are getting electricity supply. That has to be done by the State governments and the distribution companies (discoms). But we are aware that access to electricity also means consistent supply,” Verma said.
He also added that the Centre is aware of its promise of providing 24x7 power supply to all houses by March 2019 and said that they were on-track and will ensure that all houses are electrified and receive power throughout the day.
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