Hyderabad: Telangana state is the largest consumer of power in the country and has the highest per capita power consumption. These are both indexes of development.
The Central Electricity Authority has announced details of the progress of several states in the power sector for 2017-18. According to this data, TS has achieved the highest growth rate in two divisions — the highest growth in power consumption and in per capita use.
Uttar Pradesh, which has a bigger population than Telangana state, has registered a growth rate of 11.92 per cent and is in second position. Andhra Pradesh's growth rate of 7.43 per cent in power consumption puts it in third place. Maharashtra is in fourth place with a growth rate of 7.40 per cent.
In 2016-17 power consumption in TS was 53,017 million units. In 2017-18, this went up to 60,237 million units— a growth of 13.62 per cent. In the same period, the country's average growth rate was a meagre 6.11 per cent.
Prior to the formation of TS in 2014, the annual growth rate of power consumption in the united AP was just 6 per cent.
The state also topped the per capita power consumption rankings by registering 11.34 per cent growth rate. It grew from 1,551 units in 2016-17 to 1,727 units in 2017-18. At the same time in the same period the nationwide power consumption growth rate was just 2.4 per cent, from 1,122 units to 1,149 units.
AP stood second to TS in per capita power consumption. Reacting to the statistics TSTransco and Genco chairman and managing director D. Prabhakar Rao said that Telangana state could achieve this growth rate due to 24-hour free power supply to agriculture as well as 24-hour uninterrupted and quality power supply to every sector.
He said that power consumption has increased substantially in commercial and industrial sectors due to quality power supply without any power cuts. He said this is a proud moment for the state and a symbol of development.
