Vijayawada: CPI urges withdrawal of power charges

Vijayawada: The Communist Party of India (CPI) in a letter to Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy appealed to him to withdraw true-up charges on the electricity consumers for the coming eight months in the name of adjustment.

CPI State secretary K Ramakrishna said in the letter that the government should bear the additional burden of true-up charges in the larger interest of people. The CPI leader reminded the chief minister that he promised during the election campaign that he would not increase the tariff and even offered to decrease the tariffs. However, after coming to power, power charges were increased during the past 27 months. The true-up charges would burden the people to the extent of Rs 3,669 crore.

He said that it was atrocious that the electricity regulatory authority gave its ruling that the Discoms could collect Rs 1.27 per unit for the electricity consumed between 2014 and 2019 on the pretext that the Electricity department suffered loss during that period. At a time people are suffering financial loss due to the pandemic, the Centre and the State governments have been burdening people with moiré charges and taxes.

While the centre raised prices of fuel, cooking gas, and essential commodities, the state government is burdening with hike in the property tax, garbage tax and water charges. Now this additional burden of true-up charges is not proper, he said. The state government should immediately withdraw the proposal to avoid another agitation against power tariffs and the government should bear the burden of charges, he added.