Power minister Nilesh Cabral said that the Goa electricity department will complete all pending power infrastructure projects before the coming elections, including the rollout of smart meters for low-tension power consumers.<\/p>\n
The assurances, provided during a debate on the efficiency of the Delhi and Goa government\u2019s power model, failed to convince the Aam Aadmi Party\u2019s Valmiki Naik. Naik said that while the Delhi government has succeeded in providing reliable power supply and free power within four years of being elected, the BJP government in Goa has failed to provide cheap and reliable power for the last nine years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe intend to put all 7 lakh or 6.5 lakh consumers on smart meters,\u201d Cabral said. \u201cI want to convert everybody else to smart meters. I have one year and two months left for my term and I will try to push it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cabral said that around 1,200 high tension power consumers in the state have already been shifted to smart meters and they get their bills on the first of every month.<\/p>\n
The power minister admitted that Goa\u2019s power infrastructure is poor and needs to be upgraded. Cabral said that he has asked the government to deposit the electricity duty charged on every power bill in a separate account so that the funds can be utilised for infrastructure improvement. The state collects Rs 200-300 crore every year as electricity duty, but the funds are deposited in the consolidated fund of the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the last six months I have been following up and I had a meeting with the chief minister today and in a month this problem will be solved. I have already moved a file to make sure that the money goes to a separate account and not the consolidated fund,\u201d said Cabral.<\/p>\n
The minister said that the Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) is offering a loan to the state to improve power infrastructure and the funds from the electricity duty will be used to repay the loan.<\/p>\n
However, Naik said that similar assurances were made in 2018 when Cabral was sworn in as the power minister.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat this government hasn\u2019t been able to do in nine years, he says he can complete in nine months,\u201d said Naik. \u201cHow much more time do you want? You have not been able to make electricity cheap, but are increasing the electricity rate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Naik said that inefficiency and corruption were behind Goa electricity department\u2019s losses and rising power costs. \u201cNobody is keeping a watch on power theft or whether it is being ignored. Distribution and transmission losses are high,\u201d said Naik.<\/p>\n
While the debate began on cordial terms, tempers started to run high towards the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Power minister Nilesh Cabral said that the Goa electricity department will complete all pending power infrastructure projects before the coming elections, including the rollout of smart meters for low-tension power consumers. The assurances, provided during a debate on the efficiency of the Delhi and Goa government\u2019s power model, failed to convince the Aam Aadmi Party\u2019s Valmiki Naik. Naik said that while the Delhi government has succeeded in providing reliable power supply and free power within four years of being elected, the BJP government in Goa has failed to provide cheap and reliable power for the last nine years. \u201cWe intend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-386400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-power"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}