Amaravati: Telugu Desam Party (TDP) National President N Chandrababu Naidu on Sunday urged the Chief Secretary to initiate immediate steps to rescue industrial, agriculture and service sectors by ensuring quality and uninterrupted power supply.
Naidu stressed the need for addressing the severe problem of power cuts so as to protect the people’s livelihoods and their standards of living.
In a letter to Andhra Pradesh Chief Secretary, the TDP chief said it was the duty of any government to give first priority to the power sector because of its key role in industrial development and the State economy.
“However, in the past three years, the state power sector was totally crushed due to the thoughtless policies and lack of planning on the part of the state government. In 2014, after the State Reorganisation, there was a power deficit of 22.5 million units in Andhra Pradesh,” he said.
“By implementing reforms and giving incentives, the State achieved surplus status by 2019. By this time, the installed capacity was increased from 9,529 MW to 19,160 MW. Thus, the state became one of the three power surplus States in the country,” the letter read.
Naidu said that at that time, the government announced not to increase current charges and also to ensure zero power cuts. “At the same time, agreements were signed with the solar, wind and such non-conventional energy companies for 25 years at the lowest purchase rates in the country.”
The TDP regime made plans for increasing power generation to meet the demand up to 2024 but the YCP rule failed to enhance production, Naidu stated.
The TDP chief blamed the state government’s corruption, vendetta and negligence for the increased current charges and severe power cuts as of now.
“The PPAs with solar and wind companies were cancelled thoughtlessly. Thousands of crores of payments were not made to power and coal companies. As there were no reserves in power exchange, the State had to buy at very high rates,” he said.
Naidu strongly objected to the government showing interest to “buy high priced power from other States but not increasing generation capacity within Andhra Pradesh”.
“The State Government’s negligence was responsible for the lack of enough coal reserves. It failed to keep coal reserves enough for 45 days. The Centre said it stopped coal supplies due to non-payment of dues,” Naidu wrote in the letter.
Further, Naidu slammed the Jagan Reddy rule for ‘throwing’ lakhs of workers on the road by announcing a power holiday to the industries.
“It was shameful that 90 per cent of power shortage in South India was reported in AP alone. The evergreen Godavari districts were also facing power cuts and crop holidays now. Crops were drying in the State due to lack of enough power supply to motors,” he added.
The TDP chief said prawn and fish farmers were incurring heavy losses due to a lack of current supply and non-functioning oxygen motors.
“Farmers had to spend lakhs of rupees on diesel in order to run motors to save prawn and fish. Experts said over 10 lakh people would lose livelihood directly or indirectly due to power cuts. The MSME units were badly hit due to erratic power,” the letter read.
Naidu deplored that the government was not showing any concern when the people were suffering a lot on account of the power crisis.
“Emergency hospital services were suffering setbacks because of power cuts. Three children died at Kadapa RIMS Hospitals within two days because of a lack of power supply. The government hospitals had no money even to buy diesel to run generators,” he added.
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