New Delhi, May 07: Claims made by some states like Uttaranchal and those in the North-Eastern region that they have been producing surplus power is nothing but a "myth", a leading industry chamber has said. "The fact remains that no single state in India is yet a power surplus state," Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) said in a release, based on an analysis carried out by it. According to the latest official figures, the gap between the availability of power and its requirement in all the states and union territories, barring a few exceptions, continued to widen between 1999-2000 to 2002-03, the chamber said.

The analysis, based on various government records, points out that the North-Eastern region, which is otherwise considered a power surplus zone, saw the gap in power requirement and availability rise to 155 million units in 2002-03 from 73.9 million units in 1999-2000. The major reasons attributed for this shortage include poor generation of power in this region as also the huge transmission and distribution (T&D) losses due to inadequate infrastructure and no efforts to improve upon the existing T&D lines by the agencies concerned in the region.

Similar is the situation in the so-called power surplus state of Uttaranchal where the record of shortage of power during 2002-03 has been to the level of 66 million units.

Bureau Report