All efforts are being made by the state government to deal with the drought - AK Sharma

RL Pandey

Lucknow: Urban Development and Energy Minister of Uttar Pradesh, AK Sharma, while discussing the situation of drought and flood in the Legislative Assembly today, gave a befitting reply to the allegations leveled by the opposition in the House and said that the Yogi government of the state should work in the interest of the farmers.

Has been Working is being done aggressively for farmers, villages, and farms. In order to avoid interruption in the irrigation of crops, the power supply is being ensured for 10 hours a day (from 07:00 am to 05:00 pm) through 11 KV agricultural feeders. Today, UPPCL has also decided that due to local reasons and faults, if there is an obstruction in the fixed 10-hour power supply for the farmers, then it will be met at all costs after the fixed roster.

Energy Minister Mr. AK Sharma also said on the allegation that there is no power supply for 18 hours in the rural areas, although the government is trying its best to provide 18 hours of power supply to the rural areas. However, on June 17, 2023, UPPCL has issued an order in this regard regarding the non-supply of electricity to rural areas as per the 18-hour roster due to severe heat, storm, storm or other local disturbances and faults.

The shortfall should be completed after the schedule. He said, especially on the allegations made by the opposition MLAs of Azamgarh, Ghazipur, about disturbances in power supply and delay in changing transformers, that from the year 2012 to 2017, the state had the highest demand of 13,000 MW of electricity and in 2016-17 the peak demand was 16,110 MW. , whereas currently 25 thousand to 28 thousand MW demand is going on. The maximum demand for this year was 28284 MW. As on August 09, the state had the lowest demand of 16494 MW. Similarly, in the year 2022-23, 15.11 lakh million units of electricity were consumed in the entire country, in which Maharashtra had the highest consumption of 12 percent, followed by Uttar Pradesh at 9.5 percent. In the year 2022-23, the peak demand of Maharashtra was 28846 MW and the peak demand of Uttar Pradesh was 28284 MW. Which is proving that we are going to become the biggest consumer of electricity in the country.

Shri AK Sharma said that a total of 10.65 lakh tube well connections were given in the last 70 years. In Yogi ji's rule of 06 years, after giving 04 lakh additional connections, now 14.65 lakh tubewell connections have been made. Similarly, in the 70 years of independence, 12 lakh transformers were installed, but since 2017 till now 2.50 lakh additional transformers have been installed, now there are 14.36 lakh transformers. Work is being done by the state government with 6-10 times more speed and 01 lakh transformers were installed in the last one year. He said that the MLAs of Ghazipur, Azamgarh region have expressed anguish over the power system, so let me tell you that 854 transformers in Ghazipur and 850 in Azamgarh were changed in the month of July and now in the month of August, 236 transformers were replaced in Ghazipur and 200 in Azamgarh.

Changed Shri AK Sharma said that for the strengthening of the power system, works worth Rs 1268 crore are being done under the business plan and Rs 13 thousand crore under the RDSS scheme. In the month of July, the load of 3692 transformers was increased and 33872 transformers were changed. In the last 04 months, about one lakh transformers were changed and the load of 5300 transformers was increased. Similarly, 85,000 dilapidated poles were replaced during this period. 25 thousand km of dilapidated lines were replaced in 20 thousand villages.

He said that work is being done aggressively for farmers, villages, and farms. There are 21,000 power feeders in the state, out of which 5,100 feeders are overloaded due to agricultural work. These are being separated from the normal feeder. So far 2700 feeders have been separated. He said that solarization of agricultural pumps is also being done to increase the income of the farmers. For this, there is a provision of a 100 percent subsidy for SC/ST, Vantangiya, and Musahar castes and 90 percent subsidy for other castes.

He said that the Yogi government of the state is providing 24-hour electricity to the cities, 22 hours to the tehsil headquarters, and 18 hours to the rural areas as per the prescribed schedule. There is no discrimination of any kind in this. Be it Mau, Gorakhpur and Varanasi, or any other district. For example, Saifai and Etawah used to get electricity in the previous governments and the bill was never collected from any village of Etawah. But we are giving electricity to the entire state, that's why we are asking for an electricity bill also. On sub-stations being submerged due to floods in Terai areas of Balrampur, Gonda, and Siddharth Nagar districts, he said that efforts will be made to establish such sub-stations at higher places to save them from submerging.