Nagpur :- Additional Chief Secretary (Energy) Abha Shukla was awarded ‘Women in Energy Award’ and Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL) was awarded ‘Energy Company Award’ in ‘The Economic Times Energy Leadership Awards 2025’ in New Delhi on Thursday, at the hands of Union Minister of State for New and Renewable Energy Shripad Naik and former Union Energy Secretary Anil Razdan.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Minister of State for Energy Meghna Sakore-Bordikar congratulated ACS (Energy) Abha Shukla as well as Chairman and Managing Director of MSEDCL Lokesh Chandra and all officers and employees for the honour.
The two-day National Energy Leadership Annual Summit 2025, organized by the Economic Times, was attended by about 500 national and international representatives from the fields of energy, petroleum and natural gas, renewable energy, mining, environment, forest and climate change. ACS (Energy) Abha Shukla gave a special lecture along with a presentation on the power sector in Maharashtra.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has accelerated radical reforms in the energy sector of the state through energy transformation that are beneficial for all electricity consumers. Due to this, electricity tariff has been reduced for the first time and it will reduce further in the next five years.
Mukhyamantri Saur Krishi Vahini Yojana 2.0 (MSKVY 2.0), the world’s largest 16,000 MW decentralized solar power project, will be generating 70,000 rural jobs with an investment of Rs. 65,000 crore. Due to this scheme, along with an annual saving of Rs 10,000 crore in the purchase of power by MSEDCL, the annual burden of cross subsidy will be reduced by Rs 13,500 crore. So far, 454 projects with a capacity of 2458 MW have been completed under this scheme, and over 6 lakh farmers have been provided with daytime electricity for pumps, while 32 lakh acres of agricultural land is being irrigated through solar energy.
Along with this, 6.47 lakh solar agricultural pumps have been commissioned in the state through various solar agricultural pump schemes, through which 21 lakh acres of land has come under irrigation. Maharashtra ranks first in the country in installing solar agricultural pumps.
As per the instructions of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, ASC (Energy) Abha Shukla has prepared a Resource Adequacy Plan. Emphasis has been placed on green energy in this plan. To meet the increasing demand for electricity by 2030, 45,000 MW of electricity capacity will be added, including 38,000 MW of green energy. The share of renewable energy in the state will increase from 13 % to 52 %. Along with this, an investment of about Rs 3.30 lakh crores will be made and about 7 lakh jobs will be created. Thanks to the plan, there will be a saving of Rs 82,00 crore in electricity purchase in the next five years.
On the basis of various people-oriented schemes in the electricity sector and various benefits actually achieved due to effective implementation, an 11-member national selection committee headed by former Union Energy Secretary Anil Razdan selected ACS (Energy) Abha Shukla and MSEDCL for the awards.
