Lucknow, 24 December: The proceedings of the House began at 11 am on Wednesday, the fourth day of the winter session of the Uttar Pradesh Vidhansabha.
While answering the question of the SP member Dr Ragini related to the electricity department, power minister AK Sharma said that our government has provided electricity to almost double the number of hamlets in UP than the number of hamlets which had electricity till 2017.
Energy Minister AK Sharma said that the number of hamlets in the state has not increased but electricity has reached more hamlets. During their (SP) time, electricity was available in 1 lakh 28 thousand hamlets. During our time, electricity has reached 2 lakh 50 thousand hamlets. Even then, I felt that some villages might not have electricity. A budget of approximately โน1,000 crore has been recommended for electrification of 20,000 villages. We assure the House that there won’t be a single village in Uttar Pradesh without electricity. There will be electricity poles. There won’t be electric wires on bamboo poles. There will be poles everywhere. What can be said about those who can’t see electricity at all?
Responding to a question from the SP MLA Anil Pradhan, Minister AK Sharma said that there are no problems with smart meters. He noted no case of a complaint of incorrect electricity bills that has been proven true. 5.562 million smart meters have been installed. Of these, 5.3 million have been installed after removing old meters. No money has been charged for these. New connections are charged only when smart meters are installed. To test the quality of the smart meters, five percent of the old manual meters are also installed alongside the smart meters so that the bill can be calculated. It was found that no discrepancies were found in the electricity bill.