All villages to be electrified by 2009: Shinde

Kahalgaon, May 06 (UNI) Union Energy Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde today promised to electrify all 1.25 lakh villages of the country by 2009.

After commissioning the first unit of 500 MW of the second phase of NTPC here, Mr Shinde said the UPA government had vowed to electrify all villages of the country and had accorded top priority to rural electrification in its Common Minimum Programme and was working in this direction to achieve the fixed targets.

Mr Shinde also assured to provide at least 1 MW electricity to each and every person of the country by 2012, adding that the Centre was contemplating the increase of per capita electricity consumption within the stipulated time.

The Union Energy Minister was concerned about the poor per capita electricity consumption in Bihar, adding that it was even less than 100 MW, whereas the national average was 660 MW.

Admitting the dearth of electricity throughout the country, Mr Shinde said, ''Right now the country is facing a shortage of 14,000 MW electricity and the generation capacity should be enhanced by 21,000 MW to fulfill the power requirements of the whole nation.'' The minister disclosed that the power generation had gone down during the past 10 years all over the country and he held the state governments responsible for the state of affairs. He lamented that several states had failed to enhance their power generation capacity, despite the increase in requirements and maintained that power generation was the responsibility of the state and the Centre could only assist them in achieving their mission.

UNI