State Reeling Under Power Cuts, BRS' Fact Finders To Power Stations: KTR
The Congress government was not able to supply more than six hours of power to farmers despite its claims of 24-hour supplies: BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao
HYDERABAD: The BRS, accusing the Congress government of complete mismanagement of the power sector, said it was sending six teams on Thursday to thermal power stations, and to the headquarters of the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) to investigate why the state was facing severe electricity shortages.
Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao said the BRS teams would visit the Yadadri Thermal Power Station at Damaracherla, Kothagudem Thermal Power Station, Bhadradri Thermal Power Station at Manuguru, Kakatiya Thermal Power Project at Bhupalpally, and the Singareni Thermal Power Plant at Jaipur in Chennur. One of the six teams will go to the SCCL headquarters in Hyderabad to check why the thermal power plants were facing coal shortages that was resulting in either shutting them down, or scaling down electricity production.
Rama Rao said the Congress government was not able to supply more than six hours of power to farmers despite its claims of 24-hour supplies. He said the fact was that SCCL was supplying low grade coal to TGGenco owned thermal stations, while selling good grade coal to outsiders as the company had to earn some money, especially in light of the `52,000 crore dues it had to get from Genco.
He said as a result, power production was scaled down to just around 400 MW at the 4,000 MW YTPS, while one 270-MW unit at the Bhadradri plant was shut down. The situation has come to such a pass that industrialists were talking about how they were meeting around 30 per cent of their power requirement through generators. “And even farmers from Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy’s native Kondareddypally were staging road blockades over inadequate power supply. IT companies are being asked to reduce their working hours,” he said.