Opposition parties in SPSR Nellore district on Wednesday vowed to launch a protracted struggle to fight against the Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy Government’s decision to hand over operation and maintenance of the public sector Sri Damodaram Sanjeevaiah Thermal Power Station at Nelaturu in SPSR Nellore district to a private player on a 25-year lease.
An all-party meeting convened by the Telugu Desam Party and the Left parties resolved to organise a series of protests from March 12 to exert pressure on the YSR Congress Party government to desist from privatising the first major power plant started with super critical technology with the judicious mix of local and imported coal and sea water as coolant.
Leading the discussion, Communist Party of India district secretary Ch Prabakar said it was because of the ''wrong policies'' of the present YSRCP government that the plant incurred losses. Independent power producers had been preferred in the purchase of power at a high cost and public sector power plant under-utilised, he alleged.
The ''sub-standard'' coal imported from abroad remained unutilised near the power plant, said TDP district secretary Ch. Venkateswar and demanded a probe to fix responsibility for the huge loss caused to the power plant.
CPI (Marxist) district secretary M. Ramesh said the workers and those displaced by the project without fulfilling the promises made at the time of land acquisition would be mobilised in a big way for a struggle cutting across party lines to protect the public sector power plant, without which power tariff for common people would go up over a period due to high cost of power involved in power generated by private players.
