A full-fledged Department of Power under Government of West Bengal came into being on 19th September, 1972. Until then, matters pertaining to power were being looked after by the Electricity Development Directorate under the Department of Commerce & Industries. The driving forces/factors behind the decision to create a separate department under the stewardship of a Minister-in-charge of cabinet rank were :

• urgent requirement of more power for accelerating the economic growth of the state

• need for long term perspective planning for generation of power and execution of power projects

• planning and overseeing appropriate investments in the power sector, both in the public and private domains

• enactment of appropriate legislation and framing of rules to facilitate the expeditions development of power in the state

• need for coordinating and dovetailing the activities of various power generation and distribution utilities in the state cohesively

The Department of Power is at present functioning from the New Secretariat Building  (7^th floor), 1 Kiron Sankar Roy Road, Calcutta – 700 001.

From its inception in 1972, the Power Department, playing under the able guidance of different Ministers-in-Charge and Secretaries, has been planning its desired rolecreditably. There have been some ups and downs in the development of power sector in the state, mainly due to severe resource crunch at times. But correct perspective planning and implementation of the same from 1977-78 onwards, and the thrust injected since early nineties have steered the state in the right direction. The result is there for everyone to see.

The state is now in a position to export power to other states after meeting its internal demand fully. Many more power projects are coming up, suitably programmed to meet the projected demand growth until the end of the 12^th plan period. The stress, now, is on the commensurate strengthening of the transmission and distribution network in the state to widely disperse the availability of quality power  specially in rural Bengal. Development of a state-of-the-art Satellite Communication network with state-wide coverage has already been undertaken for modernisation of various management information system which would result in betterment of consumer services by the various utilities in the state.