Gujarat providing power to all: Saurabh Patel

The state government on Wednesday denied reports that several talukas in the state were without electricity and said that power was being supplied to every citizen in the state.

“Gujarat is the only power surplus state in the country, and we are proud of it. There is no village, town or city in the state, where continuous and reliable electricity is not supplied,” said energy minister Saurabh Patel. 

The minister said that Gujarat being a power-surplus state was able to sell more than 6,200 million units of electricity to other states and power exchanges from September 2012 to August 2013.  

The minister said that apart from agriculture segment, which is supplied electricity for eight hours in a day, residential, commercial and industrial consumers get electricity round the clock.  

“More than 1 lakh power connections are being given to farmers in the state in a year. The government is spending some Rs1,500 crore every year for this,” he said.

The minister said that installed power generation capacity in the state has gone up by more than 8,600 MW in the last three years.

“Installed power generation capacity in the state was 22,257 MW as of March 31, 2013, up by 8,687 MW in three years. It is planned to be increased by more than 2,000 MW in the current year,” he said.