Power-Rich Northeast Consumes Far Less Electricity Than Rest Of India

Guwahati, May 21 : The northeast, often touted as the country's reservoir of hydel power, has the lowest per capita consumption of electricity in the country. According to a reply by minister of state for power K C Venugopal in the Lok Sabha, the combined per capita power consumption of electricity of northeastern states during 2009-10 was 249.65KW per hour, compared to the national average of 778.63KW.

The minister said that the government has taken several steps to increase availability of power in the country, which will in turn lead to enhancement in per-capita availability of power. The measures include acceleration in generating capacity addition during the 11th Plan following which new capacity of 54,964MW was added compared to the capacity addition of 21,180MW achieved in the 10th Plan.

Venugopal added that rigorous monitoring of the ongoing capacity addition programme, initiative for augmentation of domestic manufacturing capacity of power plant equipment, development of ultra mega power projects of 4000MW each, harnessing surplus captive power into the grid, renovation, modernization and life extension of old and inefficient generating units, development of an extensive network of high voltage transmission for transfer of power from surplus to deficit regions are the other steps currently being implemented.

The minister's reply shows that along with northeastern states, the per capita power consumption in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, Lakshadweep, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh was also far lower than the national average in 2009-10. Dadra and Nagar Haveli showed the highest per capita consumption of 11,708.59KW per hour while Bihar had the lowest per capita consumption of just 117.48kW per hour.

Among the northeastern states, the per capita consumption of power every hour was 209.21KW in Assam, 207.15KW in Manipur, 613.36KW in Meghalaya, 242.39KW in Nagaland, 223.78KW in Tripura, 503.27KW in Arunachal Pradesh and 429.31KW in Mizoram.