TD activists stage agitation against power tariff hike

Kakinada: Telugu Desam activists in several constituencies in erstwhile East and West Godavari districts staged agitations in front of the electrical offices on Monday in protest against the hike in power charges.

The protest in Kakinada was led by former MLA Vanamadi Venkateswara Rao (Kondababu) in front of the electrical divisional engineer office here. Slogans were raised against Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy.

Kondababu alleged that the Jagan Mohan Reddy government has caused a burden of ₹57,188 crore on the people by “hiking power charges abnormally” in the guise of changing the tariff, slab, fixed charges, additional deposits etc, for seven times. Again, electricity charges have been hiked from this April.

He said that during the Telugu Desam term between 2014 and 19, power charges had not been hiked even once. “Instead, the Naidu government increased power production capacity to 19,080mw from 9,529mw. Jagan could not increase the power production even by 1mw, and the people are experiencing power cuts,” he said.

TD activists led by TD mandal president Chalapathi Rao staged a protest in front of the Lingapalem sub-station, seeking a reduction in power charges. They also wanted the government to avoid power cuts during the summer.

Chintalapudi Telugu Desam activists staged an agitation in front of the Eluru collector’s office. Later, they submitted a representation to district collector Prasanna Venkatesh. They urged the collector to purchase paddy without fail and make payment to the farmers during the rabi season, as also provide reasonable prices to cashew crop and stop the fixing smart meters to the agriculture borewells. hintalapudi TD leader Anish and others were present.