When Power minister crushed the opposition with figures

Gandhinagar, 3 March 2012

For last many months, in almost every press conference and public meeting of Gujarat Congress, Shri Arjunbhai Modhwadia, the President, repeatedly told us that the number of pending agricultural power connections is over one million.

However, keeping the record straight, the minister of state for power Shri Saurabh Patel yesterday clarified that the right figure is not one million but 4,60,249. This includes 59,000 connections in the dark zone areas where agri power connection was not permitted since 2003 due to over exploitation of ground water.

The minister while replying an answer in the assembly said that the Arjunbhai keeps talking about 10 lakh pending power connections, but the real figure is 4.6 lakh. Shri Modhwadia was seen smiling when minister Patel said this.

Minister Patel said that 50,704 new power connections were given in last ten months, which was a record in any single year. He added that in last three years, 1.27 lakh connections were given to the farmers.

He said last year the power surplus state of Gujarat sold 5,105 million units to states like Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Delhi and Maharashtra, through which the govt managed to give Rs 3,000 crore as subsidy to farmers.

Minister Patel said a fuel surcharge due to increase in the freight charges and rising prices of coal was collected from industries, but not from the farmers.

On opposition party’s allegations over Adani power issue, the minister replied that the government has challenged Adani power in regulatory authority, and Adani has been directed to supply power to Gujarat as promised in the MoU.

On electricity duty issue that Congress raises frequently, the minister asked opposition leader Shaktisinh Gohil that what was the rate of such duty when he(Gohil) himself was a minister? It was more than what the state government charges presently, the minister said adding that this government has actually brought down the duty while Congress was in business of raising it.

Saurabh Patel’s detailed and forceful answers kept the opposition in mute mode.