No hike in power tariff for 5 years, vows Kimidi Kala Venkata Rao

Amaravati: Minister for energy Kimidi Kala Venkata Rao announced that the government will not increase the electricity charges for the next five years. He reminded that there had been no hike in power charges in the last five years as assured by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

Speaking at a media conference at the Secretariat on Monday, Kala Venkata Rao said that Chandrababu Naidu was committed to reduce the burden of electricity charges.

He informed that the state government has started functioning with power deficit in 2014, but now it became power surplus state. The reforms introduced by Naidu helped the state to overcome problems in this sector and achieve more than 135 national and international awards within first four-and-a-half years, he said.

He said that the government in the last five years spent Rs 7,000 crore for providing free electricity to farmers for nine hours in the state  and Rs 250 crore for providing electricity free of cost to SCs and STs who have been consuming maximum of 100 units per a month. The barber community has been getting Rs 1 crore worth power free of cost for their small businesses, he added.