Agartala, May 31: Power Minister Ratan Lal Nath today said that 95% of the work of Distribution Strengthening of power, with financial assistance from the Asian Development Bank, has been completed.

He also said that the work of smart meter installation will be completed by October this year. Along with this, the work under PM-JANMAN has been completed, and the work under DA-JGUA is 90% completed, which will be finished by June.

The Minister informed this during a review meeting chaired by Union Minister for Power, Housing and Urban Development Manohar Lal Khattar and Chief Minister Prof. (Dr.) Manik Saha at the state guest house.

He said that the current maximum power demand of Tripura is 542 MW. The state's availability is 365 MW, and the remaining 177 MW is purchased from the power market. The availability of power is mainly affected by the shortage of gas supply.

“The financial assistance of the Central Government has been very effective in the state. This is because the AT&C loss, which was 40% in 2018, has now come down to 18.23%. As per the instructions of the Central Government, work is underway to install smart meters in the state. All 11 KV feeders and distribution transformers have been installed with smart meters. So far, a total of 3,55,158 consumers have been connected to smart meters, and the remaining 2,16,144 consumers will be connected by October this year,” said the Power Minister.

He informed that prepaid meters have been installed in 5,894 government offices. There are 5,347 stand-alone prepaid meters. Tripura is the only state in India where prepaid meters have been installed first. A total of 1,59,013 stand-alone prepaid meters have been installed in Tripura.

“95% of the work on loss reduction under RDSS has been completed. The remaining work will be completed by July. The work under PM-JANMAN has been completed. The work under DA-JGUA is 90% completed, and the final work will be completed by June. With financial assistance from the Asian Development Bank, the Distribution Strengthening work is underway in the state. This work is 95% complete, and the final work will be completed by June. With financial assistance from the Asian Development Bank, the state has converted the 63 MW open-cycle gas turbine in Rukhia into a 120 MW combined-cycle gas turbine at a cost of Rs 1,320 crore. This work will be completed by March 2029,” said the Power Minister.

He also informed that under the Pradhan Mantri Suryaghar Muft Bijli Yojana, 12.11 MW of rooftop solar has been installed in the state, and the target is 150 MW.