Govt spending Rs 11 crore a day to purchase power: APCC

Hyderabad, Sept 13 (UNI) Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) today said the state Government was spending Rs 11 crore a day for purchasing power from the Central Grid and other states to save the crops during the ongoing Khariff season.

Talking to newspersons here, party official spoksperson N Tulasi Reddy said power consumption had gone up by 180 million units per day this year.

Dr Reddy criticised the opposition Telugu Desam Party(TDP) for finding fault with the Government on power supply to the farm sector and said the TDP during its tenure had supplied only 148 million units in September 2003.

He said AP Transco was now supplying 168 million units, but still there was a shortage of 12 million units, as power consumption had enhanced in an unprecedented manner. The Government had decided to generate an additional three million units of hydel power and save as many units by imposing cuts on domestic consumption and divert power to agriculture sector, he added.

He said the third unit of the Vijayawada Thermal Power station would be restored in two or three days. The overhauling of the 500 Mw Simhadri power project and the 150 Mw Ramagundam power station would be completed soon, he added.

He denied the TDP allegation that power generation at Srisailam was stopped to divert water from the Pothireddypadu head regulator.

about 34,000 cusecs of water was being discharged from the project to generate 18 million units of power, he added.

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