Power Scheme to Continue: Revanth

Hyderabad: The Congress would give round-the-clock (24-by-7) free power to farmers after coming to power in the next elections but would stop the over Rs 8,000 crore annual corruption scam of Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao-led BRS government, which was cheating farmers, said Telangana state Congress state president A. Revanth Reddy on Thursday here at a press conference.

Reaffirming the Congress’s commitment to providing 24 hours free power to farmers, Mr Reddy said, “The Congress invented the scheme of free power to farmers. Our party is committed to implementing all the promises made as part of the Warangal Farmers’ Declaration, which was released by our leader Rahul Gandhi.”

Explaining the context, the Malkajgiri MP said, “KCR government claims it is providing 20,000 million units of power to farmers for free, spending Rs 16,000 crore per year. But no farmer is getting power even for 12 hours in practice. Most farmers get six hours power, while farmhouses are getting 10 to 12 hours of power supply. What is happening to power being supplied for the remaining time? Farmers are not getting it. This power is being stolen and given to companies.”

“My colleague Parliamentarian and senior Congress leader Komatireddy Venkat Reddy exposed the fact that the government is not providing 24-hour power. In Bhuvanagiri, he went to verify power supply records in the log books of sub-stations. Instead of answering him, the KCR government, I am informed, has removed access to those books to hide their failure,” Mr Reddy said.

Congress leader and MLC Jeevan Reddy and MP dared the BRS government to come for an open, and would resign if the BRS can prove they are supplying power for 24 hours, he said.

Elaborating on the failure of the BRS government in the power sector, he said there has been a steep fall in rating and ranking of Telangana power distribution companies. “Wrong policies adopted by the BRS government in signing agreements with jacked up prices has resulted in the fall in rating of Telangana state discom companies from A+ to C- (minus). Their ranking fell down from top 10 to 38th and 45th place among 52 discoms in the country, which means the bottom 10 positions.”

Answering a query on how could Congress party allege corruption when the agreement was between Telangana and Chhattisgarh state governments, Revanth Reddy responded saying “Chattisgarh State government agencies only facilitated signing of agreements with private companies.”

He explained that the commitment of Congress party to farmers and Telangana was clear when Jaipal Reddy convinced Sonia Gandhi to make an extraordinary exception of distribution of power, and upped the quota for Telangana from 38 per cent (based on location of power plant) to 52 per cent (based on pro rata consumption).

“We gave more power to Telangana because of dependence on borewells by farmers here, and for the needs of Hyderabad. But why did the number of electric pump sets increase by a lakh each year after Telangana was formed if KCR government is providing water for irrigation through Kaleshwaram?”

Mr Reddy also said that Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao was cheating farmers but had committed to the Centre to fix meters on power connections to farmers.

“My comments at a meeting in the USA were twisted out of context to create doubts among farmers. The BRS is scared because we are winning the next elections. We will only remove corruption, not connection,” he added.