The Hindu Business Line : Govt will bear additional power cost burden: Andhra CM

The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, on Monday said that the additional burden created on the power sector due to purchase of power from Central generating stations and other utilities would not be passed on to the consumer.

Speaking to reporters here Dr Reddy assured that the Government would "beg, borrow or steal" if necessary for purchase of power and it was not contemplating any hike in power tariff to bridge the gap due to additional purchases.

The power situation was improving by every passing day and utilities were confident of tiding over the shortfall being experienced, he explained.

Referring to the Indiramma programme for housing for weaker sections, he said about 20 lakh houses were already grounded and the Government was closely monitoring the progress to ensure their timely completion.

On a query, Dr Reddy said that the Government was open to hold talks with the outlawed representatives of the Maoists. Meanwhile, 500 MW Unit 2 of NTPC's Simhadri Power station went out of service due to boiler tube leak. However, efforts have been initiated to fix the problem as the State continues to face huge demand supply gap.

The Transmission Corporation of Andhra Pradesh (AP Transco) in a statement said that they had tied up for purchase of up to 300 MW through power trading companies to meet the gap in addition to overdrawing about 600 MW from Central generating stations. While the State is facing severe contingencies due to loss of generation capacity, which is ranging from 1000 MW to 1200 MW over the last few days, AP Transco has geared up machinery to meet demand of 153 million units as against 144 million units during the corresponding period last year.

Due to sudden depletion of power generation capacity at Simhadri and 210 MW unit at Vijayawada thermal power station, the power supply position is being regulated to ensure that the grid does not collapse. Transco said due to some units facing with repair work and few others tripping, the loss of generation is estimated at about 1310 MW.

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