TS to challenge Centre’s order to clear power dues to AP

Hyderabad: The booster dose of sorts that Telangana believes it received from the Union ministry of power in the form of the August 29 order to pay Rs 6,756.92 crore as electricity supply dues to Andhra Pradesh, an inter-state matter into which Telangana says the ministry had no business to wade into, might not fully go Telangana’s way, if Andhra Pradesh’s plans to fight for its dues go the way it intends to.

Following the order, Telangana had said that AP owed Telangana Rs 12,940 crore overall. Telangana, which has been waging a verbal battle with the Centre for quite some time over what it says are Central plans to force it to install meters for all agricultural connections, declared immediately after the orders that the BJP government was attacking Telangana because it was opposed to metering farm power connections.

After being told by the ministry to pay up the dues to AP within 30 days, Telangana says that it will challenge the order. Incidentally, the ministry had made it clear that the amount owed for power supplied by AP between June 2, 2014 and June 10, 2017, was ‘not in dispute’.

It may be recalled that the ministry had said that Telangana received power as per the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014’s provisions, among which is a stipulation that the “successor state that has a deficit or electricity shall have the first right of refusal for the purchase of surplus power from the other successor state.”

Though Telangana had the right to buy or refuse power from AP, the ministry said that “every right of one party entails a corresponding duty. Right and duty are co-joined and as such Telangana must pay the power dues to Andhra Pradesh for electricity supplied to them under the orders of Government of India under the AP Reorganization Act, 2014.”