No power cuts in Telangana: Jagadish Reddy

Hyderabad: Amid reports of shortage of power supply in several States because of dip in coal supplies, Energy Minister G Jagadish Reddy on Tuesday said power supply in the State will continue without any outages to all its consumers.Stating that Telangana has coal reserves sufficient for over 200 years, he said there was no scope […]

Hyderabad: Amid reports of shortage of power supply in several States because of dip in coal supplies, Energy Minister G Jagadish Reddy on Tuesday said power supply in the State will continue without any outages to all its consumers.Stating that Telangana has coal reserves sufficient for over 200 years, he said there was no scope for power cuts even for a minute in the State compared to other States. The government has made arrangements in such a way that even if the demand increases from 16,000 MW to 17,000 MW, it is ready to continue to supply power unless there is no interference by the Central government.

Referring to reports of grid failure due to fluctuations, the Minister said the problems in the energy sector were arising only because of the Central government’s laws and its decisions. The country was facing the crisis only because of the Centre, he said.

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With respect to availability of coal stocks in the State, the Minister has clarified that there should not be any doubt about the coal stocks in Ramagundam, Kothagudem and Manuguru in the State. “Telangana requires 30,000 tonnes of coal daily for generating power and through Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL), 1.80 lakh tonnes of coal is extracted and supplying to various States,” he said.

“Don’t be surprised if the Centre creates problems stating that it will take over coal production and supplies by enacting laws,” the Minister said. “Telangana is ready to supply power to 1.80 crore consumers and it will continue,” he said, alleging that the Centre’s laws and its decisions will leads to problems in the States.

South India including Andhra Pradesh started facing power problem. But the Telangana government was able to supply power uninterruptedly because of a series of steps taken in advance after the formation of Telangana, he said.

“We have created history for supplying power to all types of consumers. It was only the TRS government, which is supplying free power to the agriculture sector and created a record,” Reddy said.

After Telangana was carved out, Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao has strengthened power utilities for generation, distribution and transmission in a strategic manner.

In the name of concurrent list, the Centre was attempting to dominate States and it was because of its attitude only, the States, which are doing well in energy department, are also facing problems. Since there was no Centre’s role so far in power supply issue, Telangana has achieved tremendous progress in the last seven years especially in metropolitan city like Hyderabad where an electrical network was created similar to road and other networks.

Reddy said 400 KV sub stations were established on all four sides of the city for continuous power supply. “We developed the transmission system in such a way that the power generated anywhere in the State can be brought to the city,” he explained.

Be it from Ramagundam, Jayashankar Bhupalpally, Kothagudem, Nagarjunasagar and Srisailam, the power, which was generated, was getting to the city and en route the same cane be distributed to other areas.

With respect to the Centre’s attempt to bring one nation and one grid, the Minister said, “We may face loss since it’s a conspiracy and the decision was taken in the favour of investors only,” the Minister said.

“There is no role for the Centre in service sector since electricity supply in a service rendered by the State government. For instance in interior villages in Adilabad, Khammam or Mahbubnagar, how can the Centre play its role in supplying power?

“It is usually taken care by the State,” he said. The Centre’s one nation one grid move is not a progressive step. If power supply is disrupted so the entire country should face it, he asked adding that there will be security if State government establishes electricity network on its own.

When his attention was drawn towards artificial coal shortage created to help private players to increase solar power, the Minister said, “There is no doubt in it. The country did not face coal shortage even when lockdown was imposed due to Covid-19.”

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