Bhopal:Saturday, September 27, 2008:Power generation in the state has gone up by three thousand 147 megawatts during the last four and a half years. This remarkable achievement is the result of the state government’s untiring efforts and the fact that it has accorded top priority to power generation and distribution. For this purpose, the present state government did not hesitate to provide Rs 939 crore share capital to Madhya Pradesh Power Generation Company. Not only this, the state government vigorously pursued the construction work of two maga power plants and ensured their completion. With this, the total power generation capacity in the state has gone up to six thousand 138 megawatts. Meanwhile, process of chalking out a strategy to increase power generation by five thousand 818 megawatts by the year 2012 has also started.
According to facts and figures quoted by the Energy Department, power generation has gone up by three thousand 147 megawatts during the last four and a half years. This increase is really stupendous since during earlier 50 years, the state could achieve only two thousand 991 megawatt power generation capacity and ten years before December 2003 power generation could be increased by only 845 megawatts.
During the last four and half years 105 percent increase was registered in power generation which helped in power supply to the tune of 35 thousand 800 million units during the year 2007-08. This was 35 percent more than the power supply of 27 thousand 100 million units during 2002-03. Similarly, during the year 2007-08 maximum demand of six thousand 684 megawatt power was met which is 44 percent more than four thousand 562 megawatt maximum power supplied during 2002-03. These figures have created a record in the state.
One of the reasons behind these achievements is that the present state government has never hesitated to spend huge sums. It was also not possible to achieve these successes without investing capital in power sector. With this in view, the state government has paid Rs 52 crore in 2004-05, Rs 335 crore in 2005-06, Rs 227 crore in 2006-07 and Rs 325 crore in 2007-08 to the Power Generation Company. For this purpose Rs 100 crore provision has been made in the budget for the year 2008-09. This is a glaring example of the state government’s commitment on the power generation front. It assumes added significance since no funds were made available to the Power Generation Company during the ten years preceding the last four and half years tenure of the present state government.