Government planning further electricity tariff reductions in A.P., says Minister

Minister for Energy Gottipati Ravi Kumar stated that continuous efforts are being made to reduce power purchase costs, and plans are being drawn up to further lower electricity tariffs in the future. Accusing the YSRCP government of grave misdeeds, the Minister said that those misdeeds continue to haunt the power sector and the people of Andhra Pradesh even after five years.

Keeping its promise, the coalition government ensured reliable and quality power supply while reducing tariffs without imposing any additional burden on the public, he added. 

Mr. Ravi Kumar said in a press release that since the formation of the A.P. Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) in 1999, the government has created history by implementing a true-down for the first time in 26 years, and reiterated that the YSRCP government had crippled the public by imposing electricity tariff hikes amounting to ₹32,166 crore in the form of true-up charges. He claimed that solar, wind energy, and battery storage projects and pumped storage systems were being aggressively promoted to boost power generation, and external power purchases were being tightly regulated.

He said that the coalition government has decided to absorb the additional true-up burden so that the people would not be burdened by tariff hikes, and pointed out that, driven by greed for commissions, the YSRCP leadership had indulged in indiscriminate and overpriced power purchases, completely ignoring the utilisation of available domestic resources. 

As a result, an enormous burden of ₹32,166 crore had been imposed on the public in the name of true-up charges, Mr. Ravi Kumar said, adding that Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu had, with his vast administrative experience and long-term vision, introduced far-reaching reforms in the power sector, which resulted in A.P. being a surplus power State till 2019.