Union Minister for Power and Housing and Urban Affairs, Manohar Lal, has recently reviewed the power sector scenario of Andaman and Nicobar Islands (AN&Is) at Sri Vijaya Puram. LG of UT of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, D. K. Joshi was present in the meeting along with the senior officials of the UT administration, Ministry of Power, Govt. of India (GoI), and senior officials of the Power Sector CPSEs.
The meeting started with a presentation on the brief overview of the Power Sector Scenario in the UT of AN&Is. In the course of presentation, the present status of power availability, power generation and gap between demand and supply was highlighted – along with the major challenges and possible solutions. Thereafter, officials from Ministry of Power gave a presentation on the projects of interconnection of island through grid and distribution infrastructure augmentation works sanctioned by Government of India under Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS) in the UT, which would help in improving the power supply quality and availability across the islands. Additionally, issues related to current energy mix were also discussed.
In his address, Lal mentioned that it was his first visit to the AN&Is. This visit to the UT would be important in understanding and in resolution of the issues in the Power sector in the UT. He emphasized on the need for reducing dependence on diesel-based generation by increasing share of renewable sources of power generation, especially wind energy, in the archipelago and working towards energy storage. This will result in reducing per unit energy cost. The minister also mentioned to explore the possibility for alternate sources of energy generation like ethanol based. Further, the importance of Electric Vehicles (EV) and EV Charging stations were also emphasised.
