Chandrababu Naidu writes to CS against move to merge Kuppam RESCO with discom

Amaravati : TDP national president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Saturday strongly objected to the cancellation of the sale, distribution and retail licence to the Kuppam Rural Electric Cooperative Society Ltd (Kuppam RESCO) without valid reasons.

Naidu urged the AP chief secretary to exempt Kuppam RESCO from the retail licence in order to allow the cooperative society to continue its activities as before. The orders of the AP Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) for the cancellation of the licence were unilateral, he said.

In a letter to the chief secretary here, Naidu said that the APERC order for the merger of Kuppam RESCO with the AP Southern Powder Distribution Company Ltd (APSPDCL) was against the will of the people.

The APERC order was given just because of Kuppam RESCO not getting the retail licence. It was not proper on the part of the government to allow the APSPDCL to take over Kuppam RESCO at this juncture.

The TDP chief said that Kuppam RESCO was established in 1981 in the Kuppam Assembly constituency. It was aimed at achieving the 100 per cent rural electrification in the backward and distant corners of Kuppam segment. The Kuppam Society had succeeded in its objective with the support from the RESCO AP.

Naidu told the chief secretary that there were over 1.22 lakh shareholders in Kuppam RESCO Society and they had over 1.24 lakh connections. These consist of residential, commercial and industrial connections. Majority shareholders were small and middle class farmers and SC, ST, BC families.