Will ban sale of power to other states: Energy Minister K J George

Shivamogga: Energy Minister K J George stated that the state government is making necessary arrangements to frame a law prohibiting the sale of power generated by private companies in the state to other states.

He was speaking at a meeting convened to review the progress of the energy department, here on Saturday. He said, "There is no dearth of power in the state so far. But it may emerge in the coming days, and so this step is inevitable. Thermal power plants in the state had stopped production for annual maintenance. The average demand for power per day in Karnataka is around 8,000 to 9,000 MW. But it rose to 16,000 MW. In order to manage this, the state government purchased power from other states, and the supply of power to farm pump-sets had been reduced from 7 to 5 hours. But now, power is being supplied to farm pump-sets for seven hours. The department is determined to take all measures to prevent the dearth of power in the coming days."

Shivamogga Rural MLA Sharada Poorya Naik said the revenue of gram panchayats was being used to pay electricity bills. He demanded that the government must waive off electricity bills for gram panchayats.

Reacting to this, the minister said the complete waiver of electricity bills for gram panchayats would not be possible. "However, a one-time settlement can be permitted. If the government does not pay money while purchasing power from other states, Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited would be blacklisted," he said.

In response to a query, he mentioned that there are four lakh pending applications for electricity connection under the Akrama-Sakrama scheme. "It will take around four to five years to dispose of these applications. Afterwards, new applications will be accepted," he said.

District in-charge Minister Madhu Bangarappa, MLAs Araga Jnanendra, Belur Gopalakrishna, MLA S N Channabasappa, KPTCL Managing Director Pankaj Kumar Pandey, Deputy Commissioner Gurudatta Hegde, and Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer Lokhande Snehal Sudhakar were present.