Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, on Saturday, asked power utility, UP Power Corporation Limited, to ensure efficiency in billing and revenue collection.

In an obvious dig at the Samajwadi Party government headed by Akhilesh Yadav, the chief minister said the Bharatiya Janata Party government had effectively eliminated the VIP culture where uninterrupted electric supply was available only in four districts.

“For us every electricity consumer, be it of urban or rural area, is a VIP,” the chief minister said.

“Every city, town and village is a VIP in the BJP rule and our government has ensured electric supply to all without any discrimination,” the chief minister while addressing Rs Bijli Mahotasav Evam Urja Diwas’ here on Saturday.

The chief minister inaugurated 12 primary sub-stations and laid the foundation stones of another five on this occasion. The total cost of the primary sub-stations inaugurated is estimated at Rs 2,723.20 crore.

Congratulating people on the occasion, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Uttar Pradesh had taken a big leap in power generation and distribution. He said that as many as 1.21 lakh villages, which remained without electricity since independence, had been electrified in the last five years while 1.43 crore free electricity connections had been given to the needy people in the state under the Saubhagya Yojana in the last five years.

Yogi said that during the previous governments there were four “VIP districts” in UP that received power while the rest 71 districts were denied electricity and the people there were left to struggle with darkness.

“But, today there are no VIP districts as every district is a VIP district. In the last five years people have been provided electricity without any discrimination. This is what we call democracy,” the chief minister said.

According to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, power supply is currently available for 23 to 24 hours in district headquarters, for 20-22 hours in tehsil headquarters and for 16 to 18 hours in villages.

He added: “Our aim in the next five years is to provide electricity to every household in the state to help achieve the goal of Ujjwal Bharat in the next 25 years as the country celebrates Amrit Mahotsava.”

Speaking on the occasion, Energy Minister Arvind Kumar Sharma said what UP had achieved in 60 years in terms of power generation and number of connections provided, the state did in just five years under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

Sharma said that from independence to the year 2017, the total power generation capacity of UP was 6,000 MW while an additional 5,200 MW was being produced in the state due the efforts of Yogi Adityanath. Sharma also congratulated the chief minister for reducing power tariff in the state.

Praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making India self-sufficient in electricity generation, Sharma said that the country was also exporting surplus power to Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar. He said that India had the biggest power grid in the world, thanks to the prime minister’s ambitious One Nation One Grid project.

The newly inaugurated transmission/distribution sub-stations will directly benefit people of Rasra (Ballia), Babina (Jhansi), Malvan (Fatehpur), Ayodhya, Azizpur (Shahjahanpur), Dulhipur (Sant Kabir Nagar), Mandhata (Pratapgarh), Bilochpura (Baghpat), Mirganj (Bareilly), Kailah (Chitrakoot) and Baghpat.

The foundation stones were laid for transmission/distribution sub-stations of different capacities at Knowledge Park-5, Ecotech-8 and 10 and Jalpura, Greater Noida (Gautam Buddha Nagar), Shohratgarh (Siddharthnagar).