ELURU: Energy Minister Gottipati Ravikumar on Friday said the coalition government’s primary objective is to ensure quality, uninterrupted power supply at affordable rates while strengthening infrastructure to meet growing demand without imposing additional burdens on consumers.
Along with Housing Minister Kolusu Parthasarathy, Ravikumar inaugurated a 132/32 KV substation at Dharmaji Gudem in Eluru district. Addressing a public meeting, he said Andhra Pradesh, which remained power-surplus until 2019, suffered severe setbacks due to what he described as unethical and irrational decisions of the previous YSRCP regime.
He alleged that the previous government shut down state-owned plants and purchased power from other states at higher prices, burdening consumers with nearly `30,000 crore. Tariffs were hiked nine times, he said, pushing the sector into crisis and resulting in losses of nearly Rs 1.30 lakh crore.
Ravikumar said the coalition government under Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu took immediate corrective measures to restore the sector and is committed to further reducing charges, planning to cut unit costs by up to Rs 1.19 over the next three years.
To meet rising demand, the government is investing about `6,000 crore in new infrastructure, including 220 KV and 400 KV substations, as well as 132/11 KV substations across the state. Power generation has been enhanced at Krishnapatnam, VTPS, and RTPS, reducing dependence on external purchases. He said reliable, competitively priced power will attract industries and generate jobs. The government is promoting solar and wind projects and implementing pumped storage on a large scale.
Criticising the previous government for neglecting central schemes such as PM Suryaghar and PM Kusum, Ravikumar said the coalition revived them and set a target of 10,000 PM Suryaghar connections per constituency. Plans are also underway to use covered conductors to prevent accidents.