Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Saturday directed power department officials to set up a central control room to ensure 24x7 uninterrupted power supply across the state.

Since the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s comprehensive victory in the Delhi polls, Sonowal has been taking one decision after another to improve basic facilities with an eye on the 2021 Assam polls.

Early this week, he had held two meetings with Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) officials to provide drinking water to 50,000 households in Guwahati by December. The state will implement the Centre’s flagship scheme Jal Jeevan Mission to provide drinking water to all households in the state by 2024.

Chairing a meeting with power department officials, Sonowal said, “A central control room should be established to quickly zero in on the fault area, detect cause of fault and take corrective steps to restore power. During the rains, several electrical installations develop technical snag leading to disruption of power supply.” The average annual shortage of power in Assam is about 200 megawatt, a power department source said.

Sonowal said the central control room will map the entire network of electricity installations and figure out technical snags, if any, to help workers rectify the fault.

He asked the authority concerned to carry out extensive survey of the vulnerable points across the state and take remedial measures to avoid accidents and electrocuted-deaths, especially during the flood season.

Taking a stock of the Mukhya Mantri Akashdeep Yojana, Sonowal told the department to distribute LED bulbs to all beneficiaries.

He also instructed them to fill up the department’s vacant posts.