Power budget

Reviving the practice of presenting separate power budget, the Finance Minister said that as against Rs 4782.36 crore worth power purchase, the Government might end up with revenue worth just Rs 1800 crore approximately.  Till February 2015, the budget revealed, the Power Development Department had realized revenue worth Rs 1527.67 crore only as against the target of Rs 3508.62 crore. The big gap between power purchase and revenue realization has been a perennial problem with the Government and in the power budget the Finance Minister has left the house guessing how this gap would be bridged. The budget provides for meeting power purchase bill and liabilities in the financial year of 2015-16 but didn’t spell out any measures as to how the widening gap between revenue realization and power purchase will be met in just one year. The Government said the revenue recovery has been badly hit by devastating floods of September 2014. But that seems only an excuse behind which the essential problem of power theft and pilferage and transmission loss and other problems cannot be kept hidden. PDD has been in focus all the time and the old saying is that the taste of pudding is in eating. People want uninterrupted power supply especially for industries. This has not been dealt with to the expectation of the people. No doubt we acknowledge that much work has been done in power generation in past five years or more but the cry for power remains not only in remote places but in capital cities and towns as well. The Finance Minister did touch upon the harnessing of solar energy especially in Ladakh region and hopefully if that is accomplished along with other measures of streamlining power generation and conservation the situation might improve gradually.

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