UP denies Sonia's allegations on power supply partiality

Lucknow, Jun 18 (UNI) Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL) today denied allegations by AICC president Sonia Gandhi that Rae Bareli was being delibrately denied 24 hours of electricity supply.

UPPCL chairman-cum-Managing Director (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 a 24 hour basis. But, the Power Grid has not started work on the power sub- station, following which people are not getting power supply,'' he claimed.

Without getting into the politics involved in the vexed issue, the UPPCL MD 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 said.

Mr Khurana 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 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 respectively,'' 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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