Stressing on the importance of electricity in nation building both Governor Ram Naik and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav called for improving power situation in the State by preventing power theft and said power was the backbone for development.

The Governor and the CM laid the foundation stone of the new building of the UP Electricity Regularity Commission here on Monday.

The Governor expressed concern over power theft in the State, which he claimed was the main reason for the power shortage. “There is a big gap between generation and demand and this difference could be bridged by reducing line loss and power theft,” he said.

“The power regulatory commission should work for the benefit of consumers because if we want to make Uttar Pradesh as Uttam Pradesh we will have to improve power generation,” the Governor said.

The CM also dittoed Governor’s views and said that without availability of power, no development can take place. “The image of the Government totally depends on the power situation of the State. If power situation improves the image of the government also improves automatically,” Yadav said.

He said, “the State is galloping on the path of development. This automatically means that we need additional electricity. Because of reduction in generation we are forced to divert electricity from villages to cities and this is not a good sign for development, he said.”

“We know unless we do not increase power generation we cannot overcome this crisis. The chances of hydel power generation in UP is very less. So, we have requested the Centre to install atomic power station in Uttar Pradesh,” Chief Minister said.

Akhilesh too expressed his concern over the power theft in the State and asked the power employees to watch a new Bollywood movie ‘Katiyabaaz’, which has shown how to prevent power theft.

“It is unfortunate that out of the total 3.92 crore households in the State, only 1.14 crore household have legal power connections. This is pathetic. It is the moral responsibility of the people to take legal connection before using electricity,” Akhilesh said. The Government has launched a campaign against illegal power connections, he added.

The Chief Minister said that his Government was committed to improve infrastructure, including roads and power. “The last BSP Government had done nothing to reduce loss of UPPCl. When we took over the Corporation was in red and was at a loss of Rs30,000 crore. We are trying to turn the things around,” he said.