A day after former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda put the BJP Government in the dock over the surrender of the State’s share of power in the Indira Gandhi Super Thermal Power plant in Jharli, Haryana Government on Wednesday claimed to have surplus power supply to cater all the categories of consumers of the State.
A spokesperson of the Power Nigam said that as per schedule in urban areas the domestic consumers are
getting 24 hours power
supply, industrial consumers 24 hours, rural domestic consumers 12 hours and the agriculture tubewell sector 8 hours per day respectively.
Moreover , the villages selected under Mhara Gaon Jagmag Gaon scheme is getting 15 hours power supply per day, he claimed.
Hooda had a day before asked, “How can you (BJP government) claim that the state has surplus electricity at the time when people residing in rural areas are crying for electricity across the StateIJ “
Meanwhile, the State spokesman claimed that at present, Haryana has contracted capacity of 11267 MW from different power sources, most of which are Central Government sources and remaining are Independent Power Producers and State’s own Power Company HPGCl.
The State’s own generation capacity is 3230 MW. In the current winter season, the peak and off peak hour demand is fluctuating between 3200 MW to 6400 MW. During the peak season of September 2015, the average off peak demand was 6500 MW and peak demand was 8500 MW. Thus, even during the peak season huge generation capacity remained idle because there was no demand, said the spokesman.
Since power from Aravali, NTPC, Jhajjar is costing very high i.e. `5.18 per unit, its power is scheduled very less but still the Discoms have to bear the fixed cost of the plant amounting to `830 crores per annum. Thus in order to reduce losses and to bring down cost of power for the consumers, it has been decided to surrender 693 MW of Aravali NTPC Jhajjar Power for a period of one year, he added, in a reply to Hooda’s statement.
Notably, Hooda along with Congress MlAs except Kiran Choudhry, Randeep Surjewala and Jai Tirth organised a dharna outside the power plant in Jharli village on the Jhajjar- Bahujhholari road on Tuesday. He had also announced to organise a massive demonstration in Panipat on February 2 over the issue.