KCR Appeals to Modi to Withdraw Power Reforms, Bill, Immediately

Hyderabad, Sept.12 (Maxim News): Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to withdraw the proposed Electricity (Amendments) Bill 2022 which will affect the interest of the farming community and poor people in the country.

The Chief Minister has cautioned that if the Centre fails to heed the requests, it would face a revolution from the people of the country.

Taking part in the discussion on the Centre’s power reforms in the Assembly on Monday, KCR said the proposed power reforms bill would be detrimental and hazardous to the BPL (below poverty line) families and these were not suitable for the poor in the country.

Telangana has overcome the power shortage within five and half months by implementing effective measures. Now, Telangana is only the State to supply to implement 24×7 power supply to all the sectors, including agriculture in the country, KCR said.

He said the BJP government at the Centre and the TRS government in the State almost the same period came to power in respective places. But, the union government has miserably failed to provide quality power to all segments while the TRS government has been succeeding in this regard.

The Chief Minister alleged that the Modi government failed to make optimum utilization of the available power due to its bad policies and inefficiency. The national installed power capacity is 4.04 lakh MW, with a base load (firm power) of 2.42 lakh MW. However, the country recorded the highest peak load of 2.1 lakh MW on June 22 this year.

This is less than our base load. Apart from optimum utilization of the base load, we can immediately use at least 1.65 lakh MW in addition,” he explained.

According to the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) during the last eight years, Telangana‘s per capita power consumption has increased from 970 units in 2014 to 2,126 units in 2022. However, the national per capita power consumption has increased from 957 units in 2014 to 1,255 units including Telangana’s consumption in 2022. It shows how the Centre is dealing with the power sector, KCR pointed out.

The Chief Minister strongly objected to the Centre passing several bills in the Parliament on subjects like the power which are on the concurrent list, without consulting the States.

” I am very surprised at why the union government has been insisting the Telangana government withdraw the provision of free power supply to agriculture sector when a large number of farmers are getting benefited from the facility,” KCR said.

The Chief Minister found fault with BJP MLA M Raghunandan Rao for misleading the House by citing the wrong references in his statement. He read out the latest gazette published by the Centre where the latter insisted that “No connections shall be given without a meter and such a meter shall be smart prepayment meter.”

KCR feared that upon implementation of the bill, about 98 lakh families will be affected in Telangana alone. He stated that not just in agriculture, people are mandated to fix a smart prepayment meter to obtain any power connection. “Farmers, Dalits, tribals, laundries and salons, poultry, textiles, MSMEs, and all those who are getting subsidized power, will get affected,” he added.

In the name of reforms, The Chief Minister stated that the union government was bringing laws to loot the people and benefit their crony capitalist friends. “The Centre is trying to hand over the crores of rupees of assets owned by the power companies to the corporate companies,” he said.

The Chief Minister suggested that the electricity employees should realize the conspiracy and fight against the Centre failing which they would lose their jobs as the Centre is inclined to privatize the power companies.

On the request of extending Assembly sessions by opposition party leaders, KCR has promised that the State government will conduct the winter session of the Assembly soon after taking some time break and said the ensuing sessions will be held for the period of 20-25 days by giving an opportunity to discuss all the issues related to the State. (Maxim News)

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