Inefficiency,corruption responsible for UP power crisis: Jaiswal

New Delhi, May 12 (UNI) Union Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal today criticised the the Mulayam Singh government's ''inefficiency and corruption'' for the severe power crisis being faced by Uttar Pradesh.

Mr Jaiswal, who is Congress MP from Kanpur, said Uttar Pradesh is facing unprecedented power crisis with about 12 to 14 hours load shedding being experienced by most of the towns and cities. It has not only affected the commerce, trade and industry in the state but also the normal life of people who are unable to get enough sleep due to the power shortage.

The inefficient management of power units by the state government and rampant corruption was responsible for this state of affairs.

He said UP gets aggregate of 3897 to 4014 MW from the Central Generating Units which is the highest in the country. Even from the unallocated quota UP gets maximum of 16 to 25 per cent. Only, in case of Dadri Power plant there was an agreement before its operation that 90 per cent of it would go to Delhi.

He said that power generating units of Uttar Pradesh were producing only 50 per cent of their capacity due to mismanagement and corruption leading to the present power crisis. The plant load factor of state power units was extremely low at 55.7 per cent which is going down every year resulting in the state producing just 19370 million units in 2005-06.

Plant Load factor of Tanda TPS and Unchachar TPS was just 15 per cent and 18 per cent when the NTPC took over them in lieu of its dues in 2000. However, now the plant load factor of these units have increased to 86.4 per cent and 95.7 per cent respectively, he said.

Moroever, the state government withdrew a proposal to get funding from the Japanese Bank of Industrial Cooperation that was cleared by the centre due to which the project could not commence. The high incidence of theft of electicity has led to technical and commercial losses of about 38 per cent to 48 per cent in different Discoms of Uttar Pradesh.

Poor utilisation of funding provided by the Centre under APDRP was also a major reason, he said and added that of the Rs 1091.3 crore sanctioned during past three years only Rs 345.62 crore was utilised which is just 31.67 per cent of the sanctioned amount.

About the state government's assurance that the power situation would improve in next the two years following the coming up of the Power Plant by Reliance, Mr Jaiswal wondered when not even a single brick has been laid down till now how would the plant generate power in the next two years. He said that though the MoU was signed by the state government three year's back nothing concrete has been done till now so the state government's claim is totally false and maginary.

Mr Jaiswal said he had proposed to the state government to give the power generation and distribution work to NTPC for at least its industrial hub like Kanpur to improve the power scenario. However, the state government has not made any proposal in this regard, he added.

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