Draft power Bill will hit ryots, says TSSPDCL Chairman

Hyderabad: The Draft Electricity Amendment Bill 2020 if implemented in its present form will prove fatal to the farming community which is recovering from years of neglect under the rule of combined State.

Once the proposed amendments become part of the Act, the State governments will have no say whatsoever in fixing the tariffs, providing subsidies, even in the selection of members of the State Electricity Regulatory Commission (ERC) exposing the farmers to the free market turbulence.

Speaking to Telangana Today here on Friday, TSSPDCL (Telangana State Southern Power Distribution Company Ltd) Chairman and Managing Director G Raghuma Reddy said that fixing of new meters to all the agricultural pump sets in the State following the standard procedure alone cost a whopping Rs 976 crore to the Distribution companies.

“The new Act wants the State governments to fix meters and issue bills to farmers so that they can pay the actuals and the government if it wants can reimburse the subsidy component to the farmers such as the refund on LPG cylinder,” he says. He argues that there are 24.4 lakh pump sets in the State and each connection would cost around Rs 4,018 that includes service wire, Miniature Circuit Breaker Box (MCB) and labour charges.

Each farmer has to pay Rs 59, 917 per year

“Similarly each farmer’s Pump set consumes 8,747 units of power every year and if calculated at the real rate per unit without taking the subsidy component into consideration, at Rs 6.87 per unit then each farmer is liable to pay Rs 59,917 per year on electricity bill alone,” he explained. In other words each farmer in the State will have to shell down Rs 5,000 per month.

Similarly the proposed Bill which doesn’t differentiate between the categories of consumers envisages that the farmers be charged for erecting the pole near his or her farm similar to that of a domestic consumer. “We spend Rs 70,000 per such connection by providing pole, wire and even transformer free of cost to the farmer. Here afterwards the farmers will have to pay for this infrastructure burdening him further,” he said. Telangana government is bearing the burden and giving connection free of cost to farmers.

Subsidy and Support

He said that in the last six years the Telangana government has released Rs 35,891 crore under subsidy and support to the power utility companies in the state.

Similarly the utility companies i.e. Transco, Genco and Discoms have spent Rs 21,146 crore creating infrastructure such as sub stations, and transformers so that farmers in the state were given free round the clock quality power.