Hyderabad: The AP government’s Power for All scheme will kick off from October 2. As per mandate, once a city is declared as Power for All connected, there can be no power cuts for any reason except for weather-related trippings. However, as per the document for the PFA scheme, the state government has set a mandate for itself of not going back on the promise.
The power requirement for the state will see a jump from 43,000 mu currently to 80,000 mu upto the year 2018-2019. As per the guidelines for the PFA scheme from the Centre, AP will have to provide 24*7 power to all categories on consumers within at time frame of two years. To begin with, the domestic sector households which are already connected will be taken up for the scheme. The state also has 4.8 lakh unconnected households that will be connected and taken up for the scheme by 2017. Meanwhile, apart from trying for power purchases of 2,400 MW, APTransco will be required to almost double its transmission network. For expediting the transmission network and connectivity, a series of meeting have been conducted with the PGCIL (Power Grid Corporal of India Limited) which is currently developing the Western Region-Southern Region and Eastern Region-Southern Region and ERSR links.
By September 10 the final MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) is expected to be signed between the state government and the centre. The state is trying to tie up 2400 mw worth of power for a period of four years. Also addition of generation capacity in state, allocations from Central Generating Stations, increasing the transmission network are among the blueprint which is waiting the approval of the CM. "Under the scheme, once a city or town is announced to be connected, there can be no power cuts given due to power shortage, generation loss or any such reason.
Only temporary cuts due to other technical reasons might happen, but the supply will be round the clock in other reasons, as per the mandate. There can be no scheduled or un-scheduled cuts whatsoever," said an official.
