Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday alleged that the previous government of the YSR Congress Party destroyed the power sector which resulted in a whopping Rs 1,29,503 crore loss to the state besides imposing a heavy financial burden on the consumers.
The power that needs to be purchased at Rs 4.70 per unit was bought at Rs 7.61 per unit and this burden was passed on to the common man, the Chief Minister said. He expressed confidence of bringing the largely ruined power sector in the past five years back on track.
He was speaking at the inauguration of a 400/220 kv gas-insulated power sub-station built with Rs 505 crore at Tallayapalem of Thullur mandal in Amaravati.
The Chief Minister also inaugurated another five sub-stations built on the same premises with Rs 702 crore and virtually laid the foundation stone for 14 other project works to be taken up by the AP Transco in the state at a cost of Rs 4,665 crore.
Regretting that the previous government raised loans on every sector in all possible ways, even by mortgaging the buildings of various government offices, Chandrababu Naidu said that not only the Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) entered into with solar and wind power projects were cancelled but also the companies were subjected to various kinds of harassment.
As per the agreement entered into the solar power companies, the power needs to be utilised but the then government did not make use of the power generated by those plants but had to pay Rs 9,000 crore to the companies, the Chief Minister said.
The power charges were revised nine times in five years imposing a financial burden of Rs 32,000 crore on the consumers, he said.
Even without using the wind power Rs 500 crore was paid to the companies concerned while Rs 1,235 crore was paid to the Hinduja company as power was not purchased from them as per the agreement, Chandrababu Naidu said.
Since the Krishnapatnam and VTPS have not been completed on time now the expenses have gone up steeply even the expenditure for Polavaram hydel project too has gone up which are all an additional burden on the state, Chandrababu Naidu said.
Maintaining that progress is possible only if power is properly supplied, Chandrababu Naidu said that various reforms in the power sector were introduced in 1998 and brought in the Power Regulatory Commission.
“The entire country followed the reforms that were introduced by us in the state then,” he said.
By 2014, when he became the Chief Minister, the residuary Andhra Pradesh was facing a 22.5 million units power shortage, he said and stated that all these problems were resolved in just four months. Besides transforming Andhra Pradesh into a surplus power state, the charges too were not revised even once in the five years of TDP rule, he recalled.