3,361 MW to be added in 2015-16.

The State Budget presented by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah recently has envisaged addition of 3,361 MW of power to the State grid in 2015–16. This has created hopes of a substantial improvement in the power supply situation in the course of the year.

Though this is said to be a record addition, most of it is not new as the process of implementing these projects had commenced several years ago. Of this, 2,300 MW would come from Units 1 and 2 of Yeramarus Thermal Power Station and Unit 3 of Bellary Thermal Power Station while 221 MW would be from the Central Generating Stations and 815 MW from the hydel plants.

It has also been proposed to set up a solar park with a capacity of 1,000 MW on 5,000 acres of land. The long-pending proposal of setting up 350-MW gas-based power station at Yelahanka in Bengaluru has been included in the budget.

In a bid to conserve energy, it has been proposed to take up a Nagara Jyothi scheme of replacing mercury-vapour and sodium-vapour streetlights in the city corporations with energy-efficient LED lamps. It has also been proposed to set up modern automated electric meter-testing labs in Hescom, Gescom, Mescom and Cescorp.

The subsidy allocation for supplying free power to farmers and Bhagya/Kutir Jyothi consumers has been increased to Rs. 7,498 crore from the previous year's Rs. 6,308 crore.


THE HINDU