Guwahati, Sept 7: Amidst flak drawn from Opposition parties against the power outages and frequent load-shedding reported from various parts of the state of late, the Assam Cabinet meeting on Friday will look for tangible ways to tackle the situation.
Speaking to media persons, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma informed that currently there was a disparity between demand and the supply of electricity with the peak hour power demand in the state being around 2,500 MW as against 1800 MW last year, while only 1,650 MW, acquired from different power companies, was available for supply.
“This gap needs to be bridged. If we are to provide power round the clock to consumers, then we have to procure power from the open market at a rate of Rs 10 per unit, which is about Rs 6 crore everyday. For this, APDCL (Assam Power Distribution Company Ltd) will have to enhance the power tariff to meet the additional power cost,” the chief minister said.
Notably, power outages and load-shedding have been reported from various parts of the state of late, making life difficult for people amidst the sweltering heat and rising temperatures.
He further said that there were two options: Either APDCL has to procure power from the open market and hike the power tariff, or consumers have to be requested to bear with the outage of power for short periods every day.
“The Cabinet meeting on September 8 will try to find something tangible in this regard. We don’t want to enhance power tariff or resort to load-shedding,” Sarma said.
The chief minister further said that the cause of the rising power demand would be examined in the wake of the lower domestic power output.
IANS
