Minister for Energy G. Jagadish Reddy and Minister for Finance T. Harish Rao said that huge investments were made in power sector by the government resulting in production of 10,000 MW power in the State in addition to expanding the power lines.
Participating in a review meeting held BRK Bhavan on Monday, the Ministers said that as against the forecast of former chief minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy that Telangana would witness power shortage, the contracted capacity was increased from the existing 7,778 MW to 16,623 MW and an amount of ₹ 33,722 crore was spent on the power sector.
“In 2014, power cuts used to be norm of the day for farmers, industries and households. Every day there used to be protests demanding power supply. Farmers used to commit suicide as bores dried up. But Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao addressed these problems by buying power from other States as well as establishment of new power plants. Power shut down ended within six months of formation of Telangana State,” said Mr. Jagadish Reddy adding that the production capacity was increased by 2,570 MW.
The peak load factor (PLF) in Telangana stood at 75.5 % whereas it was 69.8 at NTPC, national average 57.5 % and South India average 51.7 %, he added. Similarly the number of agriculture connections have increased to 25.9 lakh from 19.03 lakh and the length of power lines has increased to 6.25 lakh kilometres from 4.89 lakh kilometres.
The ministers have also discussed about the steps that need to be put in place to reduce the gap between income and expenditure.
Energy Secretary Sunil Sharma, Transco and Genco CMD D. Prabhakar Rao, TSSPDCL CMD Raghuma Reddy, Transco JMD Srinivas Rao and others were present.
