India’s prime minister pledges to end blackouts, provide Delhi 24-hour power

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India’s prime minister pledges to end blackouts, provide Delhi 24-hour power

Narendra Modi, In a bid to promote the electoral prospects of his Bharatiya Janata Party in Delhi municipal elections. promises an end to years of persistent power cuts

PUBLISHED : Saturday, 10 January, 2015, 7:36pm
UPDATED : Saturday, 10 January, 2015, 8:43pm

Agence France-Presse in New Delhi

Narendra Modi gestures as he addresses a political rally in Delhi on Saturday. Photo: AFP

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday vowed to provide round the clock electricity for India’s capital as he kicked off his party’s campaign in elections to Delhi’s state assembly.

Delhi has an unenviable reputation both for blackouts and as one of the world’s most polluted cities, with diesel fumes from back-up generators adding to the cocktail of smog that regularly blankets the capital.

But in a speech to supporters of his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the prime minister said that he would soon make the generators redundant.
“I promise that I will provide you with a 24-hour supply of electricity.”
Narendra Modi

“I promise that I will provide you with a 24-hour supply of electricity,” said Modi who came to power after a landslide general election win in May.

Although the situation has improved since an infamous summer of city-wide blackouts in 2012, the Indian capital is still regularly hit by localised power cuts that are seen as hampering economic growth.

India’s energy sector is almost entirely state-run and recent moves by the BJP government to open up part of the coal sector to private firms prompted a strike earlier this week.

During his rally, Modi indicated that he wanted to bring in competition into the electricity sector.

“We will introduce a system where you can choose who you want to buy your electricity from, you can select your own service provider in the same way you choose your phone’s network provider,” said Modi.

An Indian vegetable vendor waits for customers during a blackout. Photo: EPA

Delhi, a city-state of some 17 million people, has been without a proper government since last February, when firebrand anti-corruption campaigner Arvind Kejriwal quit as chief minister just 49 days after taking power.

While Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party flopped in the general election, he again represents the major obstacle to the BJP’s electoral hopes.

The BJP’s failure to win control of the Delhi assembly last time round was a major shock and Modi made Kejriwal the main target of his invective, calling the self-styled anarchist a liar and “backstabber”.

No date has yet been announced for the Delhi polls, although in the next few days the election commission is widely expected to fix a date for mid-February.