The central government expects the states to make sure that all households get 24×7 power supply by April this year, barring those in the agricultural region, Power Minister RK Singh said. Since ‘metering is inadequate’ and there is ‘need to conserve ground water’, these states would be exempt from providing uninterrupted electricity to the agricultural segment of the population, he also said during a conference of power ministers of states and union territories on Tuesday.
While the issues are being resolved, 8-10 hours of power supply would be ‘sufficient’ to agricultural consumers, he added.
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The discoms should look at reducing the losses so as to turn the sector sustainable, he said adding that the government’s plans to shift to a prepaid system for power may leave states unable to buy power if they didn’t have money readily available.
