Nagpur: Energy minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Friday announced that MSEDCL was planning to launch a Rs7,300 crore scheme to revamp rural power infrastructure. Several MLAs had raised the issue of low voltage supply and frequent breakdowns in rural areas.
“MSEDCL already has a loan of Rs40,000 crore so another Rs7,300 crore won’t matter. We will take another loan for the benefit of rural populace,” the minister told the state assembly during question hour.
“We are also spending Rs5,000 crore on revamping power infrastructure under Deendayal Upadhyay Yojana and Integrated Power Development Scheme (IPDS). When these projects are completed problems of low voltage supply and frequent breakdowns will go away,” he said.
Bawankule further said that MSEDCL had identified 21,000 accident prone spots in the state and money would be spent there. “The rural power infrastructure is old and needs urgent replacement,” he added.
NCP leader Ajit Pawar, referring to a newspaper article, questioned whether the state was facing a shortage of 4,000MW. The minister said that the article was factually incorrect. “Our present peak demand is 14,400MW. We are fully meeting it without load shedding. In fact we are forced to backdown the power stations due to low demand. We had met the highest demand ever of 23,700MW without resorting to power cuts,” he added.
