Telangana No. 1 in power consumption growth

HYDERABAD: Putting up a power charged performance, Telangana has registered a nearly 14% growth in annual power consumption for fiscal 2017-18 to emerge at the top in the country. Telangana’s power consumption shot up to 60,237 million units (MU) in 2017-18 as against 53,017 MU in 2016-17.

The state also stood first when it comes to per capita power consumption at 1,727 units in 2017-18, clocking over 11% growth. In 2016-17, the state’s per capita consumption stood at 1,551 units. This is as per data on performance of power utilities in 2017-18, based on various power development indices, announced by the Central Electricity Authority (CEA).

Telangana Genco and Transco chairman and managing director D Prabhakar Rao said that as per CEA, Telangana registered the highest growth rate in two parameters to stand first in the country. “By recording a 13.62% annual growth rate in power consumption, Telangana topped other states,” Rao said.

Uttar Pradesh, one of the country’s biggest states, registered a growth of only 11.92% to emerge second, followed by AP at third spot with 7.43% growth in power consumption. The national power consumption grew only by 2.4% during 2017-18. Prior to the formation of Telangana in 2014, the power consumption growth in united AP stood at just 6%.

“Telangana could achieve this due to 24-hour free power supply to agriculture and uninterrupted power supply to both domestic and industrial sectors,” Prabhakar Rao said.