West Bengal to become power surplus state before Durga Puja

Kolkata, July 23 (UNI) West Bengal would become power surplus state before the Durga Puja and be able to export power to other states of the country.

This was announced in the Assembly by Power Minister Mrinal Banerjee while replying to the debate on the budgetary proposals for his department.

Mr Banerjee said additional 2470 MW of power would be generated from the newly installed power plants at Purulia, Sagardighi, Bakreswar and Santaldi before the festive season which would help make the state power surplus.

He said the rural electrification programme would be completed within this year, while all households across the country would receive power by 2012.

''We cannot go for hydel power plants because of scarcity of water and have to depend on thermal power units to overcome the crisis and make the state self-reliant in respect of power generation,'' Mr Banerjee observed.

Admitting some lapse in customer service, he said shortage of coal was the reason behind the loadshedding in parts of the state recently which, he maintained, would decrease within some days.

Mr Banerjee informed that 150 call centres spread over the state would be modernised and a fine would also be imposed on the WBSEB if they failed to provide power to such call centres.

UNI