Ahead of the autumn session of the Assam Legislative Assembly, Sivasagar MLA Akhil Gogoi protested over the power crisis in the state on Monday.

Outside the new Assam Legislative Assembly building in Guwahati’s Dispur, the MLA was seen holding a lamp and bisoni (Handmade fan of the Assamese community) in his hands protesting against the power crisis in the state with load shedding amid extreme heat wave conditions.

For the past few weeks, the people of Assam had been experiencing continuous power cuts amid the rise in mercury making their lives unbearable.

Following this, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma informed that the current requirement of power is over 2,500 Megawatt. However, later he met with the Union Power Minister RK Singh in New Delhi to brief him on the unprecedented 26% increase in power demand due to the growth of productive sectors of the economy. The union minister assured to consider allocating at least 300 MW of power to Assam.

Meanwhile, today MLA Gogoi protested over the power crisis and high tariff with a lamp and a bisoni in his hands. Citing All India Electricity Statistics (General Review) 2023 data, he told reporters that Assam has the capacity to generate only 558.4 MW of power including private and central.

“Today, when the other states are using more than 1,000 Kilowatt hour of power, our state is only using 384-kilowatt hour of electricity,” he said adding that the government has not yet made any arrangements to use this amount of power.

It is likely that the opposition might raise the issue of power crisis during the autumn session of the assembly.