Andhra Pradesh minister Buggana Rajendernath says TDP making false propaganda on power tariff

National

Finance Minister Buggana Rajendernath has said that the Opposition TDP and its friendly media has been carrying out false propaganda on power tariff unmindful of the fact that the new dynamic tariff has come into force from April onwards.  Speaking to media here on Friday, he said, ‘the state has shifted to the dynamic mode of billing from static mode and there is no truth in the allegations of the Opposition party and the baseless versions of the TDP friendly media.

Clarifying over the row on the inflated power bills, which is being falsely propagated on media platforms he said that the increase of power charges was only due to increased consumption during the lockdown. The opposition leaders are trying to create confusion among the public on the power tariff.

“Due to the COVID-19 crisis and lockdown situation along with hot summer, people are staying at home resulting in a hike in power consumption. Although the prices of slabs have not gone up, opposition leaders are making false remarks and creating panic among the people. As the meter readings were done in the month of March, April, and May, the average consumption is being calculated with the dynamic pricing. As the three-month bill is to be cut at once, the charges seem to appear higher,” he added.

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The Minister further stated that the new tariff has come into effect from April and said that Chandrababu Naidu is the one responsible for crippling the power sector in the State by bringing the static method to charge the electricity bills from 2016 to 2019, which is nowhere used in the country. After taking experts’ opinions along with public interest, APERC brought a dynamic billing system to prevent irregularities.

The Finance Minister asserted that the YSRCP government has cleared a majority of the pending dues to the Discoms which were made during TDP rule. “The previous government has put a due of Rs 20,000 Crores towards power purchasing and within six months of forming the government, we cleared over Rs 5,000 crores of dues and brought it to Rs 15,000 Crore. He further said that if the unit was purchased for 4.33 paise in 2014, it had been increased to Rs 6 per unit in 2019 during the TDP period. In our government, we reduced the unit to 5.16 paise. “People will certainly understand this dynamic pricing in the next billing months of June and July,” he said.