Gandhinagar, 12 March 2013

State Power Minister Saurabh Patel today while speaking in the Gujarat assembly expressed his view that power shortage will not be an issue in future, but availability of water will be the main issue. Farmers therefore should adopt drip irrigation massively.Saurabh Patel shared interesting figures on Gujarat’s power situation. Following are those details:

-Gujarat’s installed power capacity is 16,808 MW at present. In this year only 1451 MW will be added to it. In 2013-14 another 1986 MW and in 2014-15 another 500 MW installed power capacity will be added. This will bring Gujarat’s installed power capacity to 21106 MW in 2015. If further 4873 MW power generated from non conventional energy sources is added to this, Gujarat’s total installed power capacity will be 25797 MW.

-The state government has planned to give one lakh new power connection to farmers. In 1996-97 only 22706 farmers were given power connection.Compare to this in last financial year 70000 farmers were given power connections. In 2012-13 the state government planned to give one lakh fresh power connections to farmers. Of them 94000 are already given.

-Subsidy to farmers see rise of Rs 300 to 400 crore addition every year, but the state government is continuing with it. Due to central government’s policy and rising coal prices, power generation is becoming costlier. While common consumers are charged fuel cost to recover this input cost, farmers are excluded, and their part of burden is paid by state govt. The state govt provides power to farmers at Rs 1.18 per unit.

-Breaking the 40 years of tradition, the state government has separated feeders for agriculture, home usage and industrial usage at substation level. Farmers today are supplied sufficient quality power. This arrangement at substation level has been made computerized. Every day, on an average more than 7 crore unit power is supplied to farmers.

-The state govt has taken an important decision to life dark zones. In former dark zone areas, 10113 power connections are given to farmers. While during 1980-1995, then governments had given 13,000 power connections in tribal areas, the state government has given one lakh connections in tribal area in last 13 years.

-The state government has given importance to plant load factor, due to which power stations function at maximum capacity. In Gandhinagar power station, 95% plant load factor has been taken further up to 97%. In Vanakbori power station plant load factor is up from 75% to 84% and 92% to 98%.

-Due to shortage of gas, 88% gas based power generation is on halt, but due to government’s extra care, power cuts are not passed on to consumers. This is Gujarat’s best power management and planning.

-Maharashtra purchased power for Rs 3.28 and Rs 3.25 per unit, Rajasthan purchased power for Rs 3.24 per unit. Gujarat purchased same power from same private company through power purchase agreement for Rs 2.35 and Rs 2.89 per unit.