Telangana Energy Minister G Jagadish Reddy came down heavily on the Union government led by the BJP accusing it of threatening power companies to not sell power to the state. Jagadish Reddy stated that the Union government was conspiring against the state at a time when there is a daily demand of 14,000 MW.
He told reporters that at a time when Telangana is trying to buy power to meet the growing demand in view of summer, some top leaders at the Union government were making phone calls to various power companies and threatening them not to sell power to the state.
The minister said by threatening companies not to supply power to Telangana, the Union government was not only harming the interests of the state but of the entire country. He pointed out that the state has taken up various augmentation programmes like setting up of new sub-stations, transformers and LT (low tension) and HT (high tension) lines with an estimated cost of around Rs 35,000 crore. This was planned to provide uninterrupted power to all sectors, even if the demand touched 17,000 MW.
"When we are taking these measures to augment the power sector, the Centre has asked the PFC (Power Finance Corporation) and the REC (Rural Electrification Corporation) not to release the amounts. The financial institutions are not releasing the money, even though the state has already entered into an agreement with them for loans," he said.
The minister condemned the Union government’s discrimination against Telangana. He said instead of encouraging a state which is leading in per capita power consumption, the Union government was showing bias.
The minister was confident that Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao would take all necessary steps to face the Union government’s conspiracies and protect the farmers and other consumers.
The peak power demand in Telangana has crossed 14,000 MW due to big surge in consumption in view of severe heat wave conditions prevailing in the state.
The peak demand touched 14,160 MW on March 29, the highest since Telangana became a separate state in 2014.
With IANS inputs