Bhubaneswar: The state BJP on Thursday accused the BJD-led government in Odisha for the frequent undeclared power cuts across the state and failure to live up to its commitment of providing electricity to all villages by May.
BJP State Secretary Kalandi Samal during a press meet here said that the state government while reviewing power scenario ahead of summer had pledged to ensure uninterrupted electricity supply.
The Naveen Patnaik regime, however, failed to keep its word as people are made to suffer due to frequent power cuts in sweltering heat.
Similarly, though the BJD government had announced that it would provide electricity to all villages by May, around 39 lakh of over one crore houses are still deprived of power, the BJP leader claimed, asking the government to give an explanation.
Also, the state government had announced that it would provide free power to all people living below the poverty line, but in reality around 40 per cent of the BPL people were deprived of electricity, he pointed out.
He said, "The state government itself stated sometime back that Rs 2,727 crore had been received from the Centre for electrification."
The state government had informed the Assembly in December, 2015 that on the basis of its detailed report, the Centre had sanctioned Rs 1656.48 crore for electrification of all villages in 30 districts of Odisha, he said.
In addition, Rs 560 crore for rural electrification and Rs 521 crore for putting in place power infrastructure in urban areas of the state had been sanctioned, Samal claimed.
Apart from power cuts, people in most parts of the state are suffering due to chronic low voltage electricity caused by delay in installing 500 new sub-stations, he says.
Though around 27 MoUs were signed for the setting up of Independent Power Plants, only four were working at present, while no work had commenced for 20 such proposed projects due to state government's inefficiency, Samal regretted.
Similarly, several proposals for setting up hydel, solar and wind power projects have been kept in cold storage due to inaction of the BJD regime, he says.