Chandrababu Naidu rules out power tariff hike

Amaravati: Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu told the energy department to adopt multi-pronged strategy for strengthening the power sector on the sustainable basis and to reduce the power tariff in future.

During a review of the energy efficiency programmes in the 7th executive committee meeting of State Energy Conservation Mission (SECM), chief secretary Dinesh Kumar said the Chief Minister had given clear directions that all kinds of consumers should be supplied with quality power supply with global standards without increasing power tariff by single paisa.

“The Chief Minister reiterated that nothing is more important than protecting interests of consumers. He wants AP power sector stand No 1 even at global level,” the chief secretary explained. “I introduced reforms in power sector in 1990s which made AP a model to the entire country.

Now we have achieved par excellence, especially in clean energy generation and energy efficient measures and are planning to go for large scale solar storage technologies.

The state is going to be an example in providing quality and reliable power duly maintaining stabilised power tariff. This will help in attracting investments and for overall economic development of the state. My ultimate goal is to provide the fruits of technological development in power sector to the public,” the chief secretary said quoting the Chief Minister.

The chief secretary explained the multi-pronged strategy proposed by the Chief Minister to adopt global energy efficient technologies in power generation, transmission and consumption level also, to reduce losses to five per cent from the existing 9.72 per cent, and to implement the global best practices followed in Germany, UK and China to make every house energy efficient to reduce electricity bills.

Creating a mechanism to collect power dues of Rs 3,000 crore from various government departments, to adopt cost reduction mechanism to save around Rs 2,000 crore, to swap high cost loans with low cost loans, besides loan swapping of Rs 4,000 crore PFC/REC loan in particular and to strictly adhere to APERC (Electricity Regulatory Commission) regulations in implementing cost effective measures are the other issues.

The chief secretary directed the energy department to adopt integrated approach for fast track implementation of energy efficiency measures in all government departments and transform all the government buildings into star rated buildings.

He also directed the department to work out a time-bound action plan to involve all the departments such as energy, municipal administration, panchayat raj, medical and health, endowments, industries, social welfare, school education and agriculture to achieve energy savings of 13,000 MU.

Principal secretary for energy and CRDA Ajay Jain informed the officials that AP added 2,385 MW of solar power capacity, including the world’s largest Kurnool solar park (1,000 MW) which produced around 1,500 MU/ year. “Energy Minister K Kala Venkata Rao will review the sustainable power tariff measures fortnightly,” Ajay Jain said.

Principal Secretary for IT, CMD APTransco, MD APGenco K Vijayanand told the officials that the APGenco saved around Rs 500 crore through optimisation of quantity of coal for power generation so far.

The power utilities are going to implement energy efficiency measures in their offices, substations and power plants soon. APSPDCL CMD M M Nayak said that APSPDCL had installed around 25, 000 energy efficient pumps against the target of 65,000 each worth Rs 45,000 free of cost to farmers. Several senior officials were present.