The Bihar State Power Holding Company has decided to use cellphones to keep a tab on groundwork, as they aim at providing free electricity connections to over five million households in the next two years.

Providing power to all households is part of chief minister Nitish Kumar's seven resolves.

Official estimates say there are around five million households still without power. The Bihar State Power Holding Company, according to official figures, has over six million power consumers at present. It has decided to get feedback from field officials, who would connect households with power, through cellphones so that a database can be created in the state headquarters and the same can be crosschecked by a third party.

"The officials working on the ground would have to click pictures of beneficiaries in whose name power connection would be given," said Bihar State Power Holding Company chairman Pratyaya Amrit, who is also the energy secretary. "They would also have to provide address details and click pictures of electricity meter installed in the house. The same would have to be sent immediately to the state headquarters, which would make a database on the basis of input provided from the field."

Apart from helping the power company keep abreast of work on the ground, the practice would also help detect cases of duplication, as the database would point it out. The power company would also rope in an independent agency to verify work done by field officials.

"A project management agency would be put in place to do third party quality check on the work," Pratyaya said. "We are doing this work in a mission mode and we stand for maintaining high quality of work and hence these steps are being taken."

The Bihar State Power Holding Company is also undertaking several related works on other fronts to ensure sufficient power supply even after likely rise in demand in the wake of huge addition to the consumer base. As things stand now, Bihar consumes 3,200-3,500MW of power daily. With summer months ahead, the peak demand is likely to touch 4,000 MW. By 2018, when at least five million new households have power connectivity, the demand is likely to surge past 6,000MW.

"We are seized of the issue and several projects to strengthen power transmission and distribution network and enhance capacity are going on simultaneously," said a senior power official on condition of anonymity. "At present, our network is capable of supplying around 4,500MW. On completion of the ongoing project, it would rise to 7,000MW."

Another source said the company had made an elaborate plan to ensure sufficient power in the wake of increased consumer base. Bihar gets about 1,900 MW of power from the central sector and a little over 100MW from its Kanti thermal power unit. The remaining power is purchased from the open market for which short-term and long-term agreement has been made with different power producers.

Power availability in Bihar would increase by over 200MW once the two 110MW units at Barauni Thermal power station, where renovation and modernisation work has been carried out, become functional. Work is also going on at the same thermal power station for commissioning two more units of 250MW each.

Similarly, Bihar is likely to get 261MW from Kanti Thermal plant expansion project under which two units of 195MW are being constructed at Kanti in Muzaffarpur district. The work is likely to be completed in a year's time. "Apart from our own power stations, Bihar would get 429MW of power soon from the second unit of NTPC's Barh plant that would be commissioned soon," the source said. The state is already getting 429MW (65 per cent) from the first unit of 660MW at Barh, declared commercially operational on November 15, 2014.

"In addition to the enhanced power supply from power generating units in the state, our allocation from the central pool too would increase and in next one year we are likely to get 900MW of hydel energy from the Centre," said the source, adding: "The option of purchasing power from the open market would always be there with us in case things don't move on expected lines. But there would be no shortage of power in the state at any cost."