Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu warned power officials not to impose indiscriminate power cuts and took a serious view of their unscheduled power cuts, attention to consumer complaints and replacement of failed distribution transformers.
With power crisis gripping the new state after bifurcation, the Chief Minister started monitoring the power situation on a daily basis. He will hold a review meeting at 6 am everyday with top officials in the sector.
Meanwhile, AP state is facing a 15 per cent shortage of power after bifurcation and has placed orders for purchase of 570 MW from power utilities in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Around 300 MW (approximately 8 MU) is currently being drawn from these utilities. In addition to this, AP is getting 800 MW as against 1,700 MW orders placed by combined state of Andhra Pradesh under short-term purchases.
AP is slated to replicate the Gujarat Model of developing power sector and will focus on renewable sources of energy in a big way. For this to happen, the New and Renewable Energy Development Corporation of AP (NREDCAP) will expedite renewable energy projects. Since setting up wind power projects takes less than a year, APTransco was asked to set up wind power projects to the tune of 3,000 MW within one or two years.
The Chief Minister is extremely serious about providing satisfactory power supply to all categories of consumers, especially the agricultural sector, without any unscheduled power cuts. He stressed during a review meeting on Saturday that not a single minute of deviation from the announced load shedding will be tolerated.
The Chief Minister has also asked senior officials in the sector to prepare a detailed road map to overcome the power shortage.
