IMPHAL, October 14: State Electricity officials today claimed that the power supply in the state will be improved in the near future as efforts are on to get an additional 50 Mega Watts from power grids located outside the state.
Chief Engineer of the Electricity department, N Sarat said that the state produces 50 Mega Watt on its own, and receives another 50 Mega Watt from the Yurembam Power Grid as of now.
With the state already announcing the privatisation of the electricity department, the department seem set in the process of a complete makeover.
According to the CE, there are also several other developmental projects and ventures of the department in the pipeline with the main objective of improving power supply.
Addressing a press conference at his office chamber today, Sarat said that the state will also be receiving 21 Mega Watts from the Palatana Thermal Power Plant, Tripura which produces 363 Mega Watts of power.
Continuing further, he said there are also schemes to be taken up under funding from the World Bank for construction of four sub stations at Saitu Gamphazol, Tipaimukh, Tamenglong and Thoubal districts.
Once the state start receiving the additional supplies which in all likelihood would be at the earliest, the power condition in all districts will be better, he observed.
Efforts are also on to upgrade seven old sub-stations located at Imphal, Yurembam, Ningthoukhong, Churachandpur, Kakching and Yaingangpokpi, he said.
Under the Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme, AB Prepaid Payment Conductors (electric meters) will be distributed to households of 13 towns of the state during the second phase of installation of prepaid system in the state, he said.
The towns where the prepaid system will be newly installed are Imphal, Thoubal, Lilong (Imphal West), Ningthoukhong, Samurou, Nambol, Moreh, Bishnupur, Kakching, Moirang, Laxmi Thongkhong town, Lilong, Mayang Imphal.
During the first phase, 15000 prepaid meters were installed in Imphal and nearby areas.
The state will be receiving around 60000 such meters as part of the second phase, he said before adding that the department is targeting to complete the installation process of the new meters by March 2014.
The department will also be acquiring around 1 lakh electric meters that are different from the old ones being used in the state for distribution in the far flung areas and the department is hoping to complete the distribution process within a year, he said.
Elaborating further, the Chief Engineer claimed that there are efforts to change all transformers in the state with new state of the art transformers.
These new transformers will have its own meters and a ‘modem’ for a Subscriber Identification Module, through which the transformer can be connected to a computer and its behaviour downloaded, the CE continued.
Last year, the department had collected on Rs 88 crore, though the annual collection should be Rs 351 crore, he said.
The department has to collect Rs 24 crore from government departments, and even if there are dues, it is always cleared, he said.
While claiming that even after the department initiated drives against illegal connections and arresting defaulters, there are still several families who are using illegal connections, he said and further appealed to the general public to cooperate with the state.
Considering the fact that the state has been drawing a lot of flak from all sections of the society over the erratic power supply with several areas getting hardly five hours of power supply a day for the past many years, the ventures undertaken could help the department gain some positive response from the general public.