Maharashtra topped the list of states with the least average duration of power cuts in March, according to the Urban Jyoti Abhiyaan, or Urja, a power ministry service which tracks electricity delivery across India. The state had an average power cut of 1:26 hours in March, the data shows. This was about half the average duration for second-placed Gujarat, which suffered power cuts for 2:56 hours on average. Among the 17 states that provided data, Haryana had the worst figure of 48:17 hours power cuts in March. That means it suffered an average 1:33 hours of power cuts every day. Kerala topped the list of states when it came to the average number of power cuts per month at 1.58 times in March. It was followed closely by Maharashtra at 1.69 times. Jharkhand had the worst numbers at 44.83 times, or more than once a day. Despite fewer outages, Maharashtra is a laggard when it comes to loss of power through thefts and transmission and distribution inefficiencies. It lost 20.25% of power in March, much more than Andhra Pradesh, which reported a 11.69% loss. Uttar Pradesh was the worst-ranked at 40.29%. The government has launched this tracking service at a time when it has promised to ensure supply of 24X7 electricity to all Indians by 2019 and electrify all villages by 2018. To that end, it has stepped up spending on electrification and also launched schemes such as UDAY (Ujjwal Discom Awas Yojana) to help state discoms clean up their balance sheets and purchase more power from electricity generators.
