Congress protests addl electricity charges

Karimnagar: Protesting against the State government's imposition of additional burden on electricity consumers in the name of ACD charges in electricity bills, city Congress workers staged a dharna in front of the SE office here on Friday.

Speaking on the occasion, City Congress president Komatireddy Narender Reddy said that it has become routine for the State government to collect thousands of rupees from people in the name of charges.

Narender Reddy said that in the past only category 2 (traders) were charged ACD charges, but now they have opened the door to collect the charges from household consumers as well, which was troubling the middle class people.

He said that the electricity officials were collecting a surcharge of five hundred to five thousand on each bill and asked if this was KCR's Sankranti festival gift to the people of the state. He warned that the collection of additional charges should be withdrawn immediately, otherwise the protests would be intensified.

After the dharna a petition was given to SE. Congress leaders Banothu Shravan Nayak, Gundati Srinivas Reddy, Lingampally Babu, Kurra Pochaiah, Dandi Ravinder, Balabadri Shankar, Shabana Mohammed and others were present.