TS doesn’t want to burden farmers, KCR assures House

Centre introducing new Electricity Bill to benefit private players, feels CM

Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on Tuesday said in the Assembly, “It appears that the Centre is bringing the new Bill to benefit private players in the power sector. Earlier when we sought some power projects for Telangana, the Centre had pressurised us to give projects to private companies. But we did not buckle down.”

“I am placing on record and assuring the people of Telangana that as long as the TRS is in power we will not allow any private company for power generation and we will not give permission to private players to produce a single megawatt,” the Chief Minister said.

Stating that the Bill mandates installation of metres to agriculture pump sets, he said that currently there are about

26 lakh agriculture pump sets in the state and over

`750 lakh would be required to install

meters. Rao said that the Bill also obligates the state government to collect power charges from farmers and the TRS government did not want to burden them, as they are just about recovering from decades of neglect

and severe power shortage. The chief minister told the House that the new Bill also takes away the power of the state government to constitute an Electricity Regulatory Commission.

Explaining the provi

sions under the New Bill, he said that the Centre is empowering private players to purchase power as per their choice and also sub-leasing the rights of distribution of power, which will put the existing distributary companies under threat. He told the House that “the Centre has sent us a draft and I have discussed its provisions and wrote a letter to the Prime Minister urging him to withdraw the proposal. As I understand the Centre is going ahead with the introduction of the Bill in the present session of the Parliament itself.” He said that both the Congress and BJP led governments have centralised power, which is against the dictums of the Constitution. Narendra Modi is further centralising powers instead of strengthening States.

Stating that the Centre is proposing a clause in the Bill which will take away the load dispatch centre from the control of state to Delhi, he said “if there is trouble here in Hyderabad, I need to call the load dispatch centre in Delhi rather than calling the State load dispatch centre.” He asked the BJP MPs from the state to spell out their stand to TS people.