Centre nod to Andhra Pradesh power

Hyderabad: The Centre agreed to compensate 65 MW of additional power to AP after admitting that injustice was done to the residuary state in power allocation during bifurcation. The AP Cabinet meeting lauded the CM’s efforts to get 65 MW additional power after his meeting with Union ministers in Delhi. The Centre also agreed to allocate additional four lakh tonnes of coal from western coal fields to AP.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu naidu is writing a letter to his Tamil Nadu counterpart Ms Jayalalitha to give 350 MW power to overcome the power shortage crisis in Andhra Pradesh. Tamil nadu is a power-surplus State.

After the cabinet meeting, Information Minister Dr Palle Raghunatha Reddy and Municipal Minister Dr P Narayana said Naidu had represented the AP case in delhi stating while 54 per cent of power was allocated to Telangana, only 46 per cent to AP. Power Purchase Agreements which are legally valid will be honoured and those which are not legalally-valid will not be implemented, the minister reiterated.

Stating that Chief Minister N Chandrababu naidu’s target was to ensure 24x7 power supply to domestic, industrial and agriculture sector in AP, the ministers said another 800 MW power would be available from krishnapatnam plant by August 7, a whopping 1,000 MW power would be available in three months time from the Hinduja Plant in Visakhapatnam.

The cabinet decided to appeal to the farmers to to go for replacement of all the 13.5 lakh pump-sets which are high-power consuming motors, with less power consuming pump-sets. This would help AP to save 25 per cent power and divert the same to industries and other sectors. The Central government is providing 90 per cent subsidy on power-saving pump-sets, they said.

Stating that the State government will promote solar an wind energy in a big way, they said the cabinet decided to have coal stocks sufficient for 20 days in all the power plants.