Centre trying to privatise electricity supply without consulting States: Harish Rao

The Finance Minister said the governments over the past seven and half decades developed so much of infrastructure by spending lakhs of crores of public money on electricity department.

Medak: Finance Minister T Harish Rao said that the union government was trying to privatise electricity supply in the country from the backdoor without even proper consultation with the States.

Responding to the two gazette notifications issued by the union government on privatisation of electricity supply in the country, the Finance Minister said the governments over the past seven-and-a-half decades developed so much of infrastructure by spending lakhs of crores of public money on electricity department.

Addressing the Zilla Parishad general body on Thursday, Rao said that the private firms will enjoy the infrastructure and make profits since the entire infrastructure will be handed over to them. He said that the Centre had held back Rs 30,000 crore due to Telangana because they had refused to install electricity meters at the bore wells. The Minister said that Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao will go to any extent to supply round-the-clock free electricity to the farm sector in the State.

Gone were the days when getting a borewell drilled in a village or a colony in the town to meet drinking water needs was a gigantic task. Rao said that there was no need for drilling borewells for drinking water because the State government was supplying river water under the mission Bhagiratha scheme to each and every household.

The Minister enquired about the progress of different schemes and development works in Medak district. He also answered questions raised by the ZPTC members, MPPs of the Medak district during the meeting. Rao instructed Collector S Harish to grant Rs 5 lakh to each of the new mandals to meet the needs of immediate expenses. Zilla Parishad Chairperson Rekala Hemalatha Goud, MLAs M Padmadevendar Reddy, C Madan Reddy, MLC Sheri Subhash Reddy, Additional Collector Prathima Singh and others were present.