The 10 Left parties, including the CPI and CPI(M), have urged Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy to oppose the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2020 in the Parliament to safeguard the interests of Andhra Pradesh.
CPI State secretary K. Ramakrishna, CPI(M) State secretary P. Madhu, Jasti Kishore Babu of CPI (ML), Katam Nagabhushanam of MCPI (U), B. Bangarao of CPI (ML) Liberation, Chittipati Venkateswarlu of CPI (ML) New Democracy, P.V. Sundararama Raju of Forward Bloc, Janaki Ramulu of Revolutionary Socialist Party and B.S. Amarnath of SUCI (C) wrote a letter to the Chief Minister on Wednesday.
‘National Grid will have total control’
In the letter, they said the State government has to mount pressure on the Centre to withdraw the Bill, which paves way for privatisation of the power sector. “The clauses in the Bill would harm the interests of the common man. The proposals were a direct attack on the federal spirit of the Indian Constitution. Also, the proposals lead to the centralised powers. The National grid would have total control over the State and regional dispatch centres. The National Grid can stop the power supply if any of the Discoms failed to pay the dues to the power generator,” they said.
Further, “The Central government is also proposing to set up the Electricity Contract Enforcement Authority (ECEA) to ensure implementation of the contracts entered into with the private companies. The Bill proposes that the Centre would appoint the members and chairmen of the State Electricity Regulatory Commissions (SERCs),” they said.
Kills cross-subsidisation and farmers
Under the Bill, the the Central government proposed to do away with the cross subsidisation system. “So far, the tariff for industries and commercial consumers has been on a little higher side with a view to provide power at affordable rates for low income groups and social consumption. The amendments suggest that power tariff should be fixed taking the ‘cost to serve’ into consideration. With this, it would not be possible for the State governments to implement the subsidy and cross subsidisation,” they said.
The SERC has agreed to fix the cost to serve at ₹ 6.87 per unit. So, the consumers would have to pay the power tariff accordingly. “Also, it would not be possible to implement free power to about 16 lakh pumpsets in the state. It leads to suicides and hunger deaths. The little respite to the farming community would not be possible. The government has been giving free power upto 200 units to SCs, STs, weavers, goldsmiths, dhobi ghats, saloons. It would not be possible to give the concessions to micro, small and medium scale industries. The unorganized sector would be in doldrums,” they added.
