BJP questions Akhilesh's claims on power sector

The Bhartiya Janta Party on Wednesday questioned the claims of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Uttar Pradesh making giant strides in the power sector.

A day after Akhilesh Yadav laid the foundation stone of a 660 MW power plant in Harduaganj, Aligarh, state spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak sought to know who was bearing the cost of the project and how much money was going into the thermal power project.

Pointing out that the state government, after the Mumbai investors summit earlier this year, had claimed that Japanese firm Toshiba was investing Rs.3500 crore in the Harduaganj power project. This was turning out to be an investment by the government itself and that Toshiba was only the executing agency, he added.

Alleging that despite the perception being "so painfully and dramatically" created by the state government of lot of work being done in the power sector, the ground realities were "abysmal and completely in contrast", the BJP leader told IANS.

Citing promises made by the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) in the 2012 election manifesto of 22-hour power supply in cities and 16 hours supply in villages by 2016, Pathak said the reality was that power theft accounted for Rs.21 crore every day and that line losses had punctured the power sector beyond repair.

"As per statistics submitted to the Electricity Regulatory Commission for the year, power theft added up to Rs.625 crore every month in UP, is this progress in the power sector that Akhilesh Yadav is speaking about," he questioned.

He also accused the government of trying to hoodwink the people of the state on a number of MoU's signed during Agra and Mumbai investors meet while there was very little follow up on most of them.