Lokesh demands withdrawal of power holiday

Vijayawada: TDP national general secretary Nara Lokesh on Wednesday urged Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy to consider withdrawal of 'power holiday' considering its disastrous blow to industries and jobs in Andhra Pradesh.

In a letter to the CM here, Nara Lokesh said that there would be an existential threat to industries altogether if a timely decision was not taken on rolling back power holiday and ensuring quality supply.

Lokesh pointed out that already, industries were closing down one by one due to the Covid-19 lockdown, lack of incentives, unscheduled power cuts and increased current charges in the past three years. The harassment from the ruling YSRCP leaders had also caused industries to shift away to other states.

Nara Lokesh said the power cuts had caused severe losses to the granite, aqua, poultry, textiles and food industries. Because of the power holiday and other problems, over 10 lakh workers and employees were in danger of losing their livelihoods.

Expressing concern, Lokesh said the industries were unable to take orders in view of the power holiday this summer. Though they had capacity, the industries had no choice but to lose work orders. Consequently, production came down drastically resulting in a big dent in the revenue to the state treasury.

He advised the CM to hold a review meeting and explore alternatives to withdraw the retrogressive power holiday. It was easy to announce a power holiday but in practice, its implementation would be very difficult and full of harmful consequences.

He appealed to the Chief Minister to withdraw decision to collect Rs 3,000 crore from the public by increasing energy duty from six paise to one rupee on commercial and industrial consumers. Any further burdens like energy duty hike would cause the total collapse of industries in the state.

He also urged the government to withdraw the decision to hike road transport corporation (RTC) fares. The fares had been hiked twice in the last two years.