`Over 1 lakh villages without electricity

MADURAI: Despite the tremendous growth in the field of energy, there is deficit of power in the country. So a collaborative system should be developed involving government, students, educational institutions and research and development organisations, said S.C. Srivastava, Dean of Research and Development, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

          Inaugurating a two-day National Power Engineering Conference organised by the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering of Thiagarajar College of Engineering here recently, he said that there was surplus energy in east and north-eastern parts of the country while there was a deficit in rest of the country. To reach a balance, the Ministry of Power had planned to establish a regional grid, he said.

     At present, the country needed 88,000 MW of power whereas the production was 80,000 MW. Approximately, the deficit was 9.1 percentage, he said and added that by 2012 the Ministry had planned to produce 30,000 MW more. "Even if 70 per cent of this 30000 MW is achieved, it would be a massive success," he said.

     Mr. Srivastava said as many as 1,25,000 villages were still groping in the dark without electricity out of 5.93 lakh villages and about 18,000 villagers remained isolated. Distribution system should be revamped not only at the production level but also at the end-user level and equipment modernised as old machinery contributed to poor power supply. Instead of depending on hydro, gas and coal as power sources, alternative sources such as solar energy should be used.