VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh power sector should be physically and financially resilient to address the current challenges and meet the future electricity demand, said Minister for Energy Peddireddi Ramachandra Reddy. He asserted that the State government is strongly committed to strengthening the power sector and make it more consumer-centric to deliver better services.
Ahead of a high level meeting on power, which is likely to be held on April 18, Peddireddi held a teleconference with officials on Thursday and discussed the agenda for the proposed meeting -- Challenges of power sector in meeting the demand in view of coal crisis prevailing in the country, infrastructure development, release of agricultural connections, bringing power supply to normalcy from May 1.
The government has never compromised on protecting the interests of electricity consumers. It is giving top priority to the power sector, which is key to economic growth. Even when the demand for electricity increased steeply across the country with limited availability of power to buy from power exchanges, Discoms are providing quality power to domestic consumers and free power to the agriculture sector for 7 hours in daytime. Power utilities have been directed evolve an action plan exclusively for the agriculture sector to supply electricity to farmers for 9 hours in the daytime from May 1, he said.
Terming the power deficit a temporary phenomenon, he appealed to consumers to understand the situation and cooperate the government. No government has cleared subsidy dues like the Jagan Mohan Reddy government. A total of Rs 34,000 crore was paid to the power utilities. “Certain constraints pertaining to coal transportation, arrangement of coal rakes, seasonal conditions and coal price variation in the market are affecting 24x7 power supply in the State. The Russia-Ukraine war has led to operational issues and rise in prices of coal,” he said.
Energy Secretary B Sreedhar said considerable improvement in power supply may be achieved by April 25 and total normalcy is likely to return by April 30.In implementing Navaratnalu of the YSRC government, top priority has been given to the power sector. Supply of free power to the farm sector is one of the important aspect in Navaratnalu. Millions of families are benefiting from the welfare schemes. Crop in not a single acre should be hit due to the power crisis, he averred.
Officials informed the minister that the total energy demand met on Thursday was 208 MU. Citing a news report, the grid officials said several States in the country are facing power shortage. At present, load shedding is taking place in Maharashtra up to 3 hours, the officials said.