CONTRARY to claims, the  North-East region is reeling under a severe power shortage with the gap between its requirement and availability widening to 155 million units in 2002-03 from 73.9 million units in 1999-2000.

The major reason attributed for this shortage include the poor generation of power in this region as also the huge transmission and distribution losses because of inadequate infrastructure and no efforts to improve upon the existing transmission and distribution lines by the agencies concerned in the region. The analysis which is based on the various government records points out that the NE region, which is otherwise considered a power surplus zone suffers power shortage. As against the claims made by some of the states like the Uttaranchal and the states in NE region that they have been producing surplus power and that there is no power shortage for industrial and domestic consumers, within their geographical boundaries, the fact remains that no single state in India is yet a power surplus state.

According to Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India the latest available official figures, the shortage between the availability of power and its requirement in all the states and union territories barring a few exception, continued to widen from 1999-2000 to 2002-03.

The power requirement figure and that of its availability for just concluded fiscal 2003-04 are yet to be released but the indications are that it will further widen.So is the situation in the so called power surplus state of the Uttaranchal where the record of shortage of power during the year 2002-03 has been to the level of 66 million units. 

In the western region, the shortage recorded in the year 1999-2000 was of 11,751 million units, which went up to 24,058 million units in 2002-03. The power requirement of the region during the year 1999-2000 was 163,704 million units  against its availability of 151,953 million units. The ratio of the same increased to 190,745 million units to 166,687 million units in the year 2002-03. In case of northern region, the power  shortage was to the tune of 9,080 million units during the year 1999-2000 as the region’s respective requirement and availability ratio was 139,823 million units to 130,743 million units. The power shortage reported in government record for the region in the year 2002-03 stood at 12,392 million against its requirement vis-a-vis availability factor of 156,610 million units to 144,218 million units. This happened because not many power projects produced the desired level of electricity in the region during the period as also transmission and distribution losses went beyond control.In the southern region, the power required during 1999-2000 was 125,759 million units and its availability could be to the tune of 116,388 million units.

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