'Rae Bareli getting 24 hrs power despite shortage'

Lucknow, June 18 (UNI) Uttar Pradesh government today said it was providing AICC president Sonia Gandhi's parliamentary constituency of Rae Bareli with 24 hours power supply despite a shortfall of 1500 Mw.

With this, Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) also denied allegations of AICC president Sonia Gandhi that Rae Bareli was being deliberately denied 24 hours of electricity supply. UPPCL said the claim of the AICC president was not based on facts.

Corporation CMD Ashok Khurana instead turned the tables on the Centre by claiming that Power Grid Corporation had failed to start work on a 220 Kva power sub-station, which would increase the power carrying capacity of Rae Bareli.

''We are providing power supply on 24 hours basis. But, Power Grid has not started work on the power sub-station, following which people are not getting power supply,'' he asserted.

Without getting into politics involved in the vexed issue, the UPPCL CMD claimed that without proper carrying capacity, people anywhere cannot directly receive 440 kva power being supplied by the power authorities.

''We wanted to set up a 220 kva station in Rae Bareli and had procured land for the same. But, Power Grid said it would set up the station, therefore, we gave them the land we had procured...since October 2005, they have not commenced work. We brought this fact before the Union Power Minister, who was here last week. Now, Power Grid has promised to complete the work by January 15, 2007,'' he informed.

Mr Khurana said UP was fined Rs one lakh for overdrawing power from the Northern Grid. ''States, including Haryana, Punjab and Delhi have also overdrawn power from their fixed quota...they were not fined,'' he regretted.

He claimed a plan was ready to upgrade the carrying capacity of entire UP and the project would be completed within the next five years.

However, he admitted of a gap between order issued from the state capital and the actual carrying capacity of any district.

Before June 15, Rae Bareli was being provided 16 hours of power supply in urban and 14 hours in rural areas.

''But, after the Union Power Minister spoke with the CM over telephone on the issue, the power supply was increased to 24 hours in urban and 14 hours in rural areas," he claimed.

He lamented while the installed capacity of Rae Bareli was 213 MW, the feeding sub-stations there had the carrying capacity of only 120 MW.

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