Bhubaneswar, June 8: The state government has set a target to provide quality and uninterrupted power supply to all the 97 lakh families residing in the state by 2019.
Reviewing the performance of the energy department at a meeting here Monday, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said the government has also aimed at bringing down the transmission and distribution loss to 26 per cent by 2019 from 57 per cent in 2000.
The Chief Minister stressed on strengthening of distribution, generation and transmission system to achieve the target.
The meeting decided to provide power supply to all scheduled tribe (ST) hostels and solar power to inaccessible villages by 2019.
Official sources said, information technology (IT) would be used in a big way for the development of software for billing and collections of electricity dues.
In Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput (KBK) districts, 166 supply upgradation projects would be taken up for supply of electricity to consumers.
The meeting was informed that electricity was provided to 58 lakh families including 25 lakh BPL families in the state so far. Sources said 92 per cent of the villages and 62.66 per cent of the families were provided electricity in the state so far.
Energy minister Pranab Prakash Das, after attending the meeting, said, “The CM has asked to generate 25,000 jobs (direct and indirect jobs) in this sector in the coming years towards which the department will work.” UNI
