The power consumption in Telangana has started going up significantly with the launching of 24-hour uninterrupted power supply to the farmers from the New Year Day.
According to the officials of the Power Transmission Corporation, compared to the same day last year, the power consumption has increased by 20 per cent. The State was consuming 2000 MW more electricity today than last year. While many other factors like the uninterrupted supply to the Hyderabad Metro Rail and the Kalawakurthi lift Irrigation scheme have also contributed to this increase, round the clock supply the 2.3 million agriculture pump set alone has resulted in increase of 600 MW power consumption.
While normally the power consumption increases by 6 to 7 per cent every year in the State, this year the increase was very high. Officials expect that once the farming activities end, the demand for power will decrease and stabilise at a lower level.
At a meeting of the officials and employees of the electricity organisations, the chairman and managing director of Power Generation and Power Transmission Corporations D Prabhakar Rao said that launching the 24-hour free power supply to the farmers was a very big achievement, maintaining it will be a bigger challenge. “It has brought a lot of appreciation and respect to the State. Now maintaining it will be our responsibility”, he said. However the main Opposition Congress party has questioned the right of the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and his TRS Government to claim the credit for 24X7 power supply.
He said that during the last three and a half years power generation capacity of the State was not increased even by a single MW and the power situation had improved only because of the power projects launched during the Congress rule.
Another Congress leader A Revanth Reddy said that during the bifurcation process UPA Chairperson and Congress President Sonia Gandhi had changed the ratio of division of power between Telangana and Congress on the basis of power consumption.
The Congress leaders were miffed with the film star and Jana Sena party founder Pawan Kalyan meeting the Chief Minister KCR and lauding him for the launch of the 24X7 power supply to the farmers.
Meanwhile the leader of Opposition in Telangana legislative Council and former Power Minister Mohammed Ali Shabbir has demanded to know from where the KCR Government will bring the additional power to meet the growing demand.
Making a presentation on the power sector at State Congress headquarters on Wednesday Shabbir said that at the time of formation of Telangana the power generation capacity stood at 6570 MW.
The work on new power projects Bhupalapally, Jaipur and Jurala had started during the Congress rule and now they have started generating power adding 3340 MW to the capacity. He questioned the claim of KCR Government that the State had 14930 MW available.