Vijayawada: Power sector to be strengthened

Vijayawada: Observing that power sector in the state has to be both financially and physically resilient to meet the state's electricity demand in future and address the existing challenges, minister for energy Peddireddi Ramachandra Reddy said the state government was strongly committed to strengthen the power sector and make it more consumer-centric to deliver better services to the consumers.

In view of a high level meeting with energy department/power utilities likely on April 18, the energy minister held a teleconference on Thursday to discuss challenges of power sector in meeting the demand in view of coal crisis prevailing in the country, infrastructure development, release of agricultural connections and bringing power supply to normalcy.

The minister said that the state government has never compromised in protecting the interests of the electricity consumers and is giving high priority to the sector which is a key source of economic growth and one of the most important inputs for economic development.

Even at this time when the demand for electricity has increased across the country with limited availability of power to buy at the power exchanges, the utilities are providing quality power to domestic consumers and 7 hours day time free power to agriculture.

Ramachandra Reddy specifically directed the power utilities to continue to fully focus on domestic and agriculture sectors and prepare an action plan exclusively for agriculture to provide 9 hours daytime free power supply from May 1 onwards.

The minister said the power deficit arising in the state is only a temporary phenomenon and appealed to all the consumers to understand the situation.

The minister said, "Still, certain constraints with regard to coal transportation issues, arrangement of coal rakes, seasonal conditions, coal price variation in the market, etc., are affecting 24X7 power supply. Also, Russia-Ukraine war has led to operational issues of coal production and high prices of coal."

Energy secretary B Sreedhar, JMD APTransco I Prudhvi Tej, CMDs of discoms took part.

The officials said that normalcy of power supply is expected restored by April 30.