Hyderabad: The Congress on Wednesday questioned the state government for claiming credit for supplying uninterrupted power to all sectors, and starting 24X7 free power to the agriculture sector.
Top TS leaders made a Powerpoint presentation and tried to convey that the availability of power was made possible only by Congress governments, and that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao could not claim credit.
The party floated a new slogan, “Kaam hamara, naam thumara (we did the work, you claim credit).”
TPCC president Uttam Kumar Reddy, former energy minister Shabbir Ali, the Leader of Opposition in the Council, and chief spokesperson Dr Sravan Dasoju during the hour-long presentation in Gandhi Bhavan said the claims of the Chief Minister were a “bundle of lies while the facts remained otherwise.”
Summarising the presentation, Mr Reddy accused Mr Rao of misleading the people with wrong statistics. He said the total installed generation capacity was being shown as 14,138 MW in 2017 from 6,574 MW in 2014. He said this included Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) and the energy being purchased from private parties in this figure.
He said that the 1,200-MW coal based power plant at Jeypore, 600 MW Bhupalpally power unit and hydropower plants at Jurala and Pulichintala were sanctioned and designed by the Congress regimes and construction had reached an advanced stage during the tenure of the party governments.
He reiterated that not one power plant had been started and not a single additional unit was generated after Mr Rao became Chief Minister. Mr Reddy said the 4x270 MW Bhadradari power plant would become a burden on the people as it was using outdated sub-critical technology. He said hundreds of crores of rupees would be required for its maintenance every year.
He pointed out that Mr Rao had assured the Assembly in 2014 that the plant would be ready within two years. Even now there are no sign of completion of the project.
Mr Reddy said buying power from Chhattisgarh would prove costly. Against the availability of power at Rs 3.50 to Rs 4 per unit, the state was paying Rs 5.50 to Rs 6.
He also questioned the TRS government over the drop in the efficiency of TSGenco. While Genco had a plant load factor (PLF) of 85 per cent during the Congress regime, it had fallen to 69 per cent.
He said generation from Genco was being reduced to facilitate purchase from private parties.
Mr Shabbir Ali and Dr Sravan gave a detailed presentation on the status of the energy sector in Telangana including statistics pertaining to power projects and power supply position across the country.
