Shimla - Dhumal meets Power Minister in Delhi The Union Ministry of Power has left the issue of trifurcation of the Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board (HPSEB) on the state government. In a meeting of Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal and Union Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde in Delhi today, the issue of trifurcation of the HPSEB came up, where Shinde is reported to have given the state a free hand on the issue. The state's employees and engineers of the board had been opposing the trifurcation of the board into generation, distribution and transmission and had on May 29 met the Union Power Minister over the issue, after which the CM's meeting was fixed with the Power Minister. The CM said, "We have told the Centre that the state's proposed model for the HPSEB would be a commercial system with main emphasis to provide quality services to the consumers. Special focus would be allotted to investigation, planning and execution of hydro-electric projects in Himachal.' Dhumal said that the Power Minister expressed his satisfaction over the reforms brought out by the government after signing the MoU with Government of India in 2001 on power sector reforms. Shinde expressed his concern regarding evacuation of power and stressed upon the need for efficient and proper transmission of power from the state. He assured that the Central government will give full support to the state government for harnessing hydro electric potential of the state and lauded the achievement of the state government in 100 per cent electrification of the state. He also appreciated the power banking system of Himachal Pradesh with adjoining states of Punjab and Haryana and for achieving minimum transmission losses. The CM told the Minister that the state has achieved many targets in this regard. For instance, Himachal became the first hilly state to achieve 100 per cent electrification of villages and highest household coverage ratio in the country of more than 95 percent.