Mangalagiri: TDP demands white paper on coal, power crisis

Mangalagiri: TDP Rajya Sabha MP Kanakamedala Ravindra Kumar on Monday expressed concern that the Andhra Pradesh coal crisis was created only after the Jagan Mohan Reddy government stopped making payments to the coal producing companies.

He said that in order to cover up its misdeeds and failures, the government was trying to pass on the blame to the TDP. Like in many other sectors, the ruling YSRCP created a deep crisis in the power sector too only to hold the previous TDP rule responsible for the same. The Jagan regime should come out with a white paper if it had any credibility and courage to face the public.

Addressing a press conference here, the TDP MP accused the government of telling lies that the power consumption has increased in the state. But the fact was that there was 63,311 million units consumption in 2018-`19 as against just 59,911 MU in 2020-`21. Power crisis was created in AP only to help Jagan and his relatives' benami power companies sell power to the state at very high prices, he alleged.

Ravindra Kumar said that the Jagan government was wrongly saying that thermal power generation came down due to lack of coal stocks and also supply from the Centre. This was why power was being bought from outside whereas, Union energy secretary wrote a letter to AP energy secretary Nagulapalli Srikant on September 2 this year asking the state to pay all dues to coal suppliers and also increase coal stocks. The Centre also suggested not to import coal from outside, he reminded.