President confers national awards for meritorious performance in power sector
VINODKUMAR GUPTA
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
NEW DELHI: Pratibha Devisingh Patil President of India Tuesday conferred various national awards for meritorious performance in power sector for the year 2007-08.

The awards were given in the presence of Union Power Minister and Sushil Kumar Shinde Jai Ram Ramesh Union Minister of state for Commerce and Power National awards has been instituted by the Ministry of Power to inculcate a competitive spirit and to motivate the power utilities to achieve higher level of performance.

Prtibha Patil in her speech said that power is the basic input for economic development and for improving the quality of life. The country expects that its power sector will provide uninterrupted and quality power supply at reasonable rates . Optimal utilisation of energy resources by using efficient technologies for the generation, transmission and distribution of power, along with a commitment to meet the social objectives should be the vision for the power sector.

She further said that clean coal technologies can go a long way in reducing carbon emissions and contribute to meeting the challenge of climate change. All new thermal plants must invariably use clean technologies, which are environment friendly.

National Thermal Power Corporation bagged 5 national awards for meritorious performance in thermal power stations category. Power Grid got three awards in transmission system availability category and early completion of project.NTPC’s Talcher super thermal plant got Gold shield for its outstanding performance.

Mandal Mahila Samakhya’s in Andhra Pardesh got Gold and Bronze awards for performance in rural distribution franchisee category. West Bengal Electricity Transmission Company got Gold award in transmission system availability category.