Agri demand, coal crisis reasons for power cuts: Energy Secretary

Vijayawada: Energy Secretary B Sridhar made it clear here on Sunday that the extraordinary situations across the country, demand in the agriculture sector, coal crisis and wide gap between the demand and supply of power are the main reasons for the present crisis.

Addressing the media, the secretary recalled that the NTPC chairman in a meeting with Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy told the latter that Andhra Pradesh is the role model for the rest of the country in agriculture policy implementation. He said that the present crisis is a passing cloud and the government is taking precautions to provide free power supply to the farmers for the next 30 years. He said that the power consumption had reached peak since once month and power consumption for agriculture is likely to come down by the end of the month. The power supply to the industry would resume soon, he said.

"Several submissions were received from the industry and their problems would be solved soon," he said.

Though the coal crisis had been there since October last year, there had been no arrears of payment to the coal companies and there has been steady supply of coal from Singareni. He pointed out that the problem of power cuts to the domestic consumers was solved.

Referring to the power generation growth, the secretary said that the growth which was six per cent in 2014-15 has now become 14 per cent in 2020-21. The burden on the Discoms and the consumers was the result of capacity addition between 2014 and 2019. AP Transco GM Pridhviraj was also present.