Kolkata: Be it the earlier Left Front regime or the current Trinamool Congress regime, the state government has always claimed West Bengal to be a power surplus state. However, such claims are falling flat with the latest central statistics indicating that West Bengal is way behind other major states in per-capita availability of power.
Especially, the state lags miserably behind its western, northern and southern counterparts on the figures on per-capita availability of power. Recently, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has released survey report christened "Handbook of statistics on Indian States- 2020-21", where it has given detailed statistics of per- capita power availability of different Indian states.
As per the statistics, during the financial year 2020-21, the per- capita power availability in West Bengal was just 572.9 kilowatt per hour, a figure which was way lower than the national average of 1031.4 kilowatt per hour. During the financial year 2020-21, the per-capita power availability has also declined from the figure of 587.2 kilowatt per hour. The coastal state of Goa, is the best on this count during the financial year under review at 2793.1 kilowatt per hour.
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Worth mentioning in this regard is that even the small hill state of Sikkim in northeastern India is way ahead of West Bengal on this count with the per-capita power availability there is 872.9 kilowatt per hour.
Commenting on this paradox, economic analyst and columnist, Pratim Ranjan Bose said that the supply has an integral connection with demand, “the demand for power in West Bengal is quite low compared to the other Indian states and hence the production is low and hence the supply as well. The low demand is due to lack of industrial development in the state and the low wealth accumulation and purchasing ability of the average people in the state. That is why even the small hill state of Sikkim is ahead of West Bengal on this count,” he said.
Similar opinion was expressed by the teacher of economics Prabir Kumar Mukhopadhyay. “With continuing industrial famine in the state neither there will be improvement in the purchasing ability among the people nor there will be increase in the demand for power. The state government should focus on this issue on an emergency basis,” he said.
Another thing is clear from the statistics of RBI is that per-capital power availability is low not only in West Bengal but also in the other three eastern Indian states of Bihar, Odisha and Jharkhand. The figures for Bihar, Odisha and Jharkhand on this count are 327.7 kilowatt per hour, 704.1 kilowatt per hour and 292.5 327.7 kilowatt per hour respectively.
Tamil Nadu is leading among the southern Indian states on this count at 1401.4 kilowatt per hour. Haryana is leading in northern India at 2094.7 kilowatt per hour, Goa in western India as well as nationally at 2793.1 kilowatt per hour, Chhattisgarh in central India at 1176.8 kilowatt per hour and Sikkim in northeastern at 872.9 kilowatt per hour.
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