State needs 8000MW, produces only 5300MW - Shobha Karandlaje

State needs 8000MW, produces only 5300MW - Shobha Karandlaje

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangalore, April 11: Power Minister Shobha Karandlaje inaugurated Belthangady Rotary Club’s solar village scheme, launched in collaboration with Selco.

Speaking about the state’s energy requirements, Shobha Karandlaje said that Karnataka requires 8000 mega watts of electricity, adding that if it supplies electricity for 24 hours per day, the requirements shoot up to 12,000 mega watts.

Revealing further details, she said that, although the state has been generating electricity for over 100 years, it still cannot meet demands. Stating that the state produces just 5,300 mega watts, she said that 500 mega watts is purchased from private companies, while 450 mega watts is obtained from unconventional sources and 150 mega watts is purchased from Gulbarga. Since the entire country suffers from lack of electricity, purchasing power from other states is difficult, she said, adding that the union government ought to supply 1,750 mega watts from the central grid every day, but supplies only 950 mega watts while all the time promising to supply 1,534 mega watts.

Criticizing the union government, she said that the state, which aimed to achieve self-sufficiency in two years, purchased land to establish a coal-based thermal power plant capable of generating 2000 mega watts in Chattisgarh, but the union government has failed to supply coal not only to thermal power plants in Karnataka, but also in Chattisgarh.

Stating that she took up the issue with the union minister, but to no avail, she said that more than Rs. 3,400 crore has been spent on installing transformers and laying high tension cables over the towers last year. She said that there are 18 lakh authorized pumpsets and 1.75 lakh unauthorized ones, urging everybody with unauthorized electricity connection to get them authorized as early as possible.

The chief guests of the occasion were Divakar Nidwannaya, the assistant governor of Rotary Club; Jayaram Kotian of the Solar Energy Project; K. M. Udupa, the director of Selco Solar; and Sumanth, the chief operating officer of Mescom.

As part of the project, solar lights were installed in 150 houses in various villages all over Belthangady under the leadership of Selco Solar, Syndicate Bank, and Rotary Club. The club also distributed CFL bulbs on the occasion.