CM Revanth Directs Officials to Prepare Action Plan to Meet Energy Demands

Hyderabad: Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy on Friday directed the energy department to prepare a foolproof action plan to meet the energy demands in the state for the next six months.

In the long term, the Chief Minister wanted the officials including those from the finance wing to come up with proposals to address the mounting debt burden of the energy utilities.

At a high-level review meeting, Revanth Reddy categorically said that the farm sector should be provided with quality power supply during the rabi season. The meeting was attended by ministers N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, Ponnam Prabhakar and Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy besides Chief Secretary A. Santhi Kumari and energy special chief secretary Sunil Sharma.

However, D. Prabhakar Rao, whose resignation as chiarman and managing director of TSGenco and TSTransco was rejected by the Chief Minister, was conspicuous by his absence. Rao told mediapersons that he was not informed of the meeting and would have attended since it was being convened by the Chief Minister.

However, official sources said when CM held a high level review and all the officials except Rao attended, it displayed his intent. "The government will deal with it as per procedure," sources added.

Revanth Reddy is said to have focussed on uninterrupted power supply for the next six months particularly keeping in view the huge demand anticipated in the rabi season. The officials informed him of the debt burden running into '80,000 crore and Reddy asked finance special chief secratery K. Ramakrishna Rao to prepare a road map for resolving the payments issue.    

He asked officials to chalk out modalities for 200 units of free electricity to households, a promise made by the Congress during the election campaign.

The officials informed the Chief Minister that the department was on verge of collapsing financially with over '51,000 crore pending power dues from consumers and from government departments apart from '81,000 crore loans secured from different agencies for power infrastructure development.

Sources said that Revanth Reddy assured the officials that the state government would reimburse the amount to be spent on 200 units of free power to households. Officials said the measure would cost '330 crore monthly.

The modalities for giving free power to households would be prepared after gathering information from Karnataka, Punjab and Delhi where the state governments were giving free power to households.

Officials also explained the demand and supply of power in the state and added that the demand for power was reduced because of winter and the load demand is around 10,000 MW.

Chairmen and managing directors N. Sridhar (SCCL), G. Raghuma Reddy (TSCPDCL) and A. Gopal Rao (TSNPDCL) were present.