YSRC ruined Andhra power sector, says Naidu

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu released a white paper on power sector,the third of the proposed seven white papers, in a press conference at state secretariat in Amaravati on Tuesday.The Chief Minister said that the previous government had collected excessive charges from the people in various ways such as True Up, Fuel Surcharge and Electricity Duty. He added that 45 percent charges have been increased on household consumers and 53 lakh crore people have suffered due to the increase in charges. The chief minister said that the debt of power companies has increased by 79 percent in the last five years. Mr. Chandrababu Naidu said that he would focus on tariff control and take the help of the central government to put the power sector in a proper manner.
 Accusing the previous YSRC government of pushing the energy sector into a debt trap,Naidu said the sector sustained total losses to the tune of Rs 1,29,503 crore from financial year 2019-2020 to FY 2023-24. Naidu said.Stating that he had never heard of such taxes before, Naidu said the receipts from electricity duty that should have been forwarded to the power utilities were taken by the government, which failed to clear its dues to the power utilities. “Our primary objective is to provide quality and reliable power at affordable rates to all consumers in the State without any power cuts,” he declared.Expressing dismay over the gross mismanagement of the power sector by the previous government, he accused the YSRC regime of putting a grave burden on the people of the State and creating a crisis in the energy sector.

In its rebuttal to Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s white paper on the energy sector released on Tuesday, the YSRC said what was claimed in the white paper was not correct.Speaking to mediapersons, former minister Kakani Govardhan Reddy said as claimed by Naidu, there was no power deficit at the time of State bifurcation.During 2014-19 what was witnessed was an urgency for power capacity tie-up regardless of the cost implications emanating from high tariffs and the burden on future generations, under-release of subsidy to Discoms leading to the deterioration of their financial health, a huge increase in liabilities in the power sector both on account of debt in the books of the power sector corporations and payables to power generators, he said.