Hyderabad: Countering BRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao’s claim during a TV interview recently that the previous BRS government had purchased power at Rs 3.90, Deputy chief minister Bhatti Vikramarka said that he was ready for a debate with BRS leaders and that records revealed BRS purchasing power at Rs 20 per unit.
During an interview with a TV channel, Vikramarka refuted KCR’s claim that Telangana has taken electricity for long-term requirements.
“An MoU was signed with Chhattisgarh on November 3, 2014, and power scheduling started from May 6, 2017, to TSDISCOMs. Even though MoU was signed for 1000 MW, Chhattisgarh never supplied the full 1000 MW. The average power supplied was only 300 to 400 MW. Further, Chhattisgarh altogether stopped supplying power from April 2022. Therefore, the MoU with Chhattisgarh for supplying 1000 MW power to the state failed to achieve its objective,” Vikramarka clarified.
On KCR’s allegation that NTPC was ready to supply power at Rs 15 per unit, but the present state government wasn’t sourcing from them, Vikramarka said that the NTPC has already commissioned 1600 MW as per the provisions of the AP Reorganization Act, 2014 and that the average per unit rate at which they have been billing energy to the DISCOMs was Rs 5.60 per unit.
Terming Rao’s allegation about the Congress government purchasing power at Rs 13 per unit as “factually incorrect,” Vikramarka stated that the average price at which TS Discoms have purchased power from the market from December 2023 to March 2024 was Rs 5.34 per unit.
On Rao’s claim that even though the power availability in Telangana has gone from 7,700 MW in 2014 to 19,000 MW, as soon as the BRS government left power cuts returned, Vikramarka said that poor quality and maintenance of lines, transformers, and other assets in the last 10 years has led to interruptions due to technical faults, which he said, were now being attended to by the DISCOMs alongside the strengthening of distribution infrastructure.
He further stated that due to the mismanagement of the previous BRS government, the accumulated losses incurred by Telangana DISCOMs had increased from Rs 12,186 crore as of June 2, 2014, to Rs 62,461 crore as of March 31, 2023.
“Since December 2023, the state has supplied higher power than at any time in the past. Telangana DISCOMs have met the highest-ever peak demand of 15,623 MW and 308.4 MU of energy in the state. Even the GHMC area has been supplied with a record-high power of 4093 MW. There has been no occasion to impose power cuts in the state since December 2023,” Vikramarka asserted.
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