Bharatiya Janata Party State president G Kishan Reddy on Tuesday called upon all concerned to solve the crisis in power sector irrespective of political affiliations.
The Jana Chaitanya Vedika, in association with APSA, organized a round table on “Crisis in Power Sector — Solutions” in Sundaraiah Vignana Kendram, Bagh Lingampally here on Tuesday. JCV president V Lakshmana Reddy presided.
Initiating discussion on the issue, Kishan Reddy said that his party government in Gujarat was giving 24-hour qualitative power supply to the rural sector continuously. But in Andhra Pradesh, 1.75 lakh small industries have lost 40 per cent of production owing to power crisis, he said, adding that agricultural production, rural and cottage industries and farm-related industries were badly affected due to acute power shortage. He also urged the State government to take effective steps to ensure uninterrupted power supply in the rural areas to halt migration of people to the urban centers in search of livelihood.
He also criticized the government for passing on Rs 4,442-crore burden to power consumers while giving concessions worth thousands of crores of rupees to the private power companies. Of this huge burden, the poor and farming community was forced to bear the cross, he added. The BJP leader said that burden on the power consumers can be reduced considerably by effectively preventing transmission losses and theft of power. Besides, the problem can be solved if the State government exerted pressure on the Reliance Industries and avail adequate quantities of natural gas from the KG basis.
Participating in the discussion, V Lakshmana Reddy said that while per capita power consumption in the State was 967 units, it was 1615 units in the BJP-ruled Gujarat and 13,647 units in the USA. Even today, power remained a distant dream for over 30 crores of people in the country, he said. He lamented that the State government was not evincing interest in formulating plans for power generation keeping the long term needs in view. He pointed out that though there were nine gas-based power projects in the State that could generate 2722 MW, they were able to produce only 1500 MW for want of gas.
An expert in power sector K Raghu said that the expenditure on power purchase was increasing considerably due to escalation of cost of construction of power projects in the State. Besides, price rise on coal and gas also was affecting the power sector. He also alleged that Reliance Industries had deliberately reduced gas production and hiking the gas price by creating artificial scarcity. He also alleged that the State government was weakening the APGenco and encouraging the private power companies. He said that the government was trying to delink some 14 lakh farmers from the free power supply scheme.
Another expert in power sector Thimma Reddy said that the Power Regulatory Commission had miserably failed to solve the power crisis in the State. Privatization has become a greatest hurdle in the development of power sector in the State, he added. M. Venugopala Rao stressed the need for strengthening the public sector BHEL, NTPC and Genco. He also alleged that the Reliance Industries was selling KG basis gas at five times above the normal price.
Voice secretary V S Prasad Sastry, Retired professor H Nageshwara Rao, APSA coordinators Ramesh, Sivarani, FACT president B K Reddy, JCV general secretary Salim Malik and others also spoke. (NSS)