Minister for Energy G. Jagadish Reddy has accused the Centre of attempting to take over the States’ control on electricity generation, transmission and distribution activities.
Speaking to reporters here on Friday, the Minister said the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2020, being brought by the Centre was part of its conspiracy to privatise the energy sector completely in the country to harm the interests of majority sections of society such as domestic consumers and farmers. The Bill had the provision of fixing energy meters to all agricultural pumpsets and, if passed by Parliament, it would harm the interests of farmers in Telangana, which has about 25 lakh agricultural pumpsets, who are being supplied 24×7 power free of cost.
The Minister made it clear that Telangana, through its MPs in Parliament, would strongly oppose the Bill and mobilise support of other like-minded States and parties in the country to oppose the Bill in Parliament. Stating that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had already made his intentions clear on the issue, Mr. Jagadish Reddy sought to know how the Centre was planning to push the Bill to handover the energy sector having huge social responsibility to the private sector and allow them to make money without any investment in the infrastructure developed already with public money.
Mr. Reddy said the Centre was also trying to spoil the energy sector by introducing meaningless provisions on the purchase of renewable energy.
