With the newly-elected Yogi Adityanath government in saddle in Uttar Pradesh, the state is finally on the threshold of signing up on the Centre’s ambitious scheme 24×7 ‘Power for All’. Come April 14, Uttar Pradesh, which is the only state to have not signed up for the scheme yet, will formally become a signatory to the scheme that will ensure affordable and quality power to all.
The 24×7 Power for All is a joint initiative of the central and state governments with the objective of providing round-the-clock electricity to all households, industry, commercial businesses and any other electricity consuming entities within four years.
In a tweet on Thursday, energy minister Shrikant Sharma said he has directed officials of the UPPCL to provide power to every household and farm without any discrimination and to remove bottlenecks in the intra-state power transmission network so as to meet the power demand during summer months.
Under this scheme, the targets to be achieved by the state government include capacity addition, power purchase planning, strengthening the required transmission and distribution network, encouraging renewable energy, undertaking customer-centric initiatives, reduction of AT&C losses, and following good governance practices in the implementation of all central and state government schemes. It also aims at minimising the difference between average cost of supply per unit of power and per unit average revenue realised. Interestingly, the previous Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party government had refused to sign the pact.
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Union MoS for power, coal, new & renewable energy and mines Piyush Goyal had held a marathon meeting with Sharma and other senior officers of the state power department and identified the key challenges and corresponding steps that both the central and state governments would require to take to achieve the aim of 24×7 affordable quality power for all in the state.