A 900-megawatt power plant will be set up in Yamunanagar, Haryana, said an official statement on Wednesday. It said the chief minister has given the green signal to the proposal to set up another power plant at Yamunanagar and soon its site selection and detailed project report (DPR) will be approved.
At present, Yamunanagar also has a thermal power plant.
Haryana has continuously progressed in the power sector since it was carved out as a separate state in 1966, with an increase in the electricity availability from 343 megawatt at that time to 13,106.58 MW at present, the statement said.
It has become self-sufficient in terms of power availability in the state in the last eight years, the statement added.
Many power reforms were carried out by the power corporations and the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC), which was constituted in August 1998.
“When Haryana was carved out as a separate state from then joint Punjab in 1966, at that time Haryana had an acute shortage of resources. It was a big challenge before the then governments to provide basic facilities like roads, electricity, and water to the public. But in 1970, electricity was brought to every village,” it noted.
The statement said that Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar believes that all the previous governments have contributed to the development of the state, “but, the work done in the last eight years (under the BJP govt) overshadows the work done in the last 48 years (1966-2014)”.
In the field of power reforms, Haryana has taken a giant leap in these eight years, the statement said.
Meanwhile, it added that in 1966, there were 20,190 tubewells used for agriculture in Haryana, which increased to over 6.64 lakh in 2022.
“In 1966, there were only 9,749 industrial area electricity connections in the state, which have now increased to over 1.18 lakh in 2022.
“The per capita consumption of electricity was 48 units in 1966, which has now increased to about 1,805 units. Today, the number of electricity consumers is 73.82 lakh,” the statement noted.
Under the state’s ‘Mhara Gaon-Jagmag Gaon Yojana’ scheme, at present 5,681 villages, that is 84 per cent of villages of the state, are being given 24-hour power supply in comparison to only 538 villages in October 2014, it added.
Also, in October 2014, the recovery of electricity bills from rural areas was less than 50 per cent, which has now increased to more than 90 per cent.
