Finding himself in a tight corner over the issue of steep hike in power tariff, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on Thursday held a meeting with the Cabinet Sub-Committee as well as senior officials of energy department to discuss ways of reducing the burden on the poor consumers.
The meetings were convened in the backdrop of unrelenting criticism of the State Government’s move by several Ministers including Union Ministers as well as other leaders of the ruling Congress party.
The Chief Minister was expected to announce some relief for the poorer section but the Opposition parties were unlikely to be satisfied with the partial relief. Sources said that there will no hike in tariff for the domestic consumers who use up to 150 units per month. Similarly the government was also likely to clarify that there will not be any change in the policy of supplying free power to the farmers.
At the same time the Government was also under attack from the Opposition parties as YS Vijyalakshmi, honorary president of YSR Congress was leading her party legislators and leaders on a fast un to death for the last four days. Doctors monitoring the condition of the fasting leaders said that the sugar levels of five MlAs had fallen and they need to be shifted to hospitals. But the MlAs have refused to move. Vijayalakshmi was also suffering from body pains.
The left parties, TDP and the BJP, TRS have also called for a general strike in the state on April 9 to press their demand for the rollback of the steep hike. An increase of 27% in the power tariff across the board has resulted in additional burden of Rs 6137 crore on the consumers.
The hike has been so hard hitting that even the bills of the religious places has almost doubled. Temples , mosques and other religious places will now have to pay the power tariff of Rs 4.70 per units against Rs 2.60 till now.
CPI state secretary K Narayana, who convened a meeting of left party leaders to discuss the strike call for April 9 said that the coal mafia in the country was responsible for the unprecedented hike in power tariff.
The State BJP president G Kishan Reddy, calling for the strike on April 9 said that nothing less than complete roll back of the hiked tariff will be acceptable to his party. “The Chief Minister was trying to hoodwink the people”, he alleged.
The state government has also been embarrassed by the fact that the state High Court on a public interest litigation issued notices to the State Government asking for the reasons for steep hike in the tariff.