The Yogi Adityanath government released a new roster making it mandatory for Power department officials to provide electricity in rural areas at night and declared that villages would get uninterrupted power by 2018.
“In view of examinations, officials have been asked to provide power in villages at night so that students can study without hinderance. All villages across the state should get power from 6 pm to 6 am. This has been made mandatory,” Power minister Shrikant Sharma told reporters in lucknow on Friday.
Shaarma said that a new roster has been issued by which villages will get elpower for 18 hours, tehsils and Bundelkhand region for 20 hours and district headquarters for 24 hours. “This arrangement will come into place with immediate effect,” the minister said.
“This government is committed to providing uninterrupted power across the state by 2018. This is the target set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. But we will achieve the target before the stipulated time,” he said.
Alleging that previous governments neither had vision nor inclination to improve the power scenario, Sharma said that the BJP had promised people to improve power availability which would be fulfilled.
“Problems like power theft and other irregularities like transmission loss would be effectively dealt with. The state has enough power in its kitty,” the Power minister said.
“The general demand is of 16,000 megawatts which rises to around 17,000 at peak time,” Sharma said. However, power minister refused to give details about power generated by state and purchase made from other sources.
Sharma also announced that the state government would be signing a much awaited ‘Power for All’ agreement with Union Power minister Piyush Goel on April 14.
Meanwhile, the BJP lauded efforts of the Yogi government to improve power supply in the state. State BJP general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak said that theh BJP government has done away with VIP culture and all cities have been brought at par.