CEA urges Centre-state interaction to resolve power issues

The Centre and state governments must interact closely to enable power supply at reasonable rates, Central Electricity Authority (CEA) chairperson Neerja Mathur said today.
Inaugurating the Fifth Transmission and Distribution Conclave and round table summit organised by India Tech Foundation here, she said that electricity is a concurrent subject and hence various state governments as well as union government must jointly solve various issues pertaining to the power sector, particularly those related to losses incurred during transmission and distribution.
Around 1.40 lakh MW of electricity is lost during transmission and distribution, she said.
She said that existing per capita consumption of power in India is merely 912 units, which is expected to go up to 1,300 units by 2016-17, as compared to the average global power consumption of 2,700 units.

Even today, almost 40 per cent of rural areas in India have very poor electricity supply or no supply at all, she said.
Speaking on the occassion, former chairman of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) Pramod Rao advocated amending the Fiscal Responsibilities Bill (FRB) for better management of power transmission and distribution.