For over a minute, Madhya Pradesh Energy Minister Priyavrat Singh and Congress spokespersons remained embarrassed as a power cut was witnessed at the PCC, when they were addressing media persons on power sector reforms here on Tuesday.
Energy minister Priyavrat Singh had convened a press briefing at MPCC on Tuesday to disseminate information about state government’s decision to bring in power consumers who consume upto 150 units of electricity per month under the Indira Griha Jyoti Yojana.
Till now consumers registered under Sambal yojana get 100 units of electricity monthly at Rs 100. The state government has decided to extend this limit for power consumption upto 150 units per month to benefit more families, said the minister adding it was noted that several rich people were listed under Sambal and several poor were denied benefits as they could not register themselves.
“People also told us that Congress party had promised power rate cut to all but it was only given to Samabl beneficiaries so we extended the scheme so against 56 lakh families, now over one crore families would be benefitted,” said Singh. As the minister was briefing the media about other power sector reforms, power supply in the PCC was snapped leaving the minister and party spokespersons embarrassed.
The members of the press started laughing and ridiculing the minister that he can’t even ensure power in his programme. The power was finally restored after a minute and the smiling minister said, “Bijli jati hai to jaldi aa bhi jati hai (If power gets snapped, it also gets restored soon.”
In the lighter vein the minister added, “It could well be a conspiracy.” Incidentally the minister was talking about power outages when the power supply was snapped.
Notably, the Kamal Nath government has been battling unscheduled power cuts since it came to power in December last year. Thousands of power company staff have been punished over this but power outages are still hassling consumers.
The minister however claimed that MP was offering the most subsidised power to farmers in the country..
