Power issue flares up again between AP, TS

• TRS activists set fire to furniture at Nalgonda TDP office
• Party MLAs, MLCs lead agitation at Tank Bund in Hyderabad
• Say power generation can be taken up till 834-foot level at Srisailam
• At present the water level in the dam is about 860 feet, they point out
• Power station meeting 18 MU of the demand for 140 MU in TS
• Allege AP not operating Krishnapatnam plant to inconvenience TRS government

Hyderabad: The Telangana and the Andhra Pradesh governments seem to be locking horns on the issue of sharing water and power. While the TRS legislators staged a dharna in front of the statue of B R Ambedkar at Tank Bund in Hyderabad on Tuesday, the pink party activists damaged the TDP office in Nalgonda and set the furniture on fire, alleging that AP government was responsible for power crisis in the state.

Alleging that the TDP government was behaving in a manner which was anti-Telangana and was trying to deprive the people, particularly the farmers of the state, of their due share of power from Andhra Pradesh, Transport Minister P Mahender Reddy said that AP Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu had not been honouring the AP State Reorganisation Act. Though Telangana should get 54 per cent of the power generated in Andhra Pradesh, the AP government was refusing to part with it, he said. Instead of coming to the rescue of the power-strapped Telangana, Naidu had gone to the extent of writing a letter to Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) against the Telangana government and demanded that the board direct the TS government to stop power generation. The AP government had also threatened to take up the issue with the union government if water was not supplied to drought-prone Rayalaseema region, Reddy said.

Speaking to the media, a dozen Members of the Legislative Council and the Assembly, representing the TRS, lashed out at the Chandrababu Naidu government and termed its move a conspiracy to deprive them of the much-needed power.

MLCs K Prabhakar, B Venkateshwarlu, Bhanu Prasad, Yadav Reddy, K R Amos, Saleem, P Sudhakar Reddy and Jagadishwar Reddy, and MLAs Koppula Eshwar, Laxma Reddy, Gongidi Sunita, Kanaka Reddy and Venkateshwarlu, accompanied by the party cadres who converged on the Ambedkar Statue and staged the protest, venting their anger against the AP Government.

They pointed out that Government Order No. 69, issued when Naidu was the Chief Minister of the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, clearly stipulated that power generation can be taken up to 834-foot level in Srisailam reservoir. At present the water level is about 860 feet, they said and pointing that there was absolutely no justification for the AP government’s demand to suspend power generation.

The legislators charged Naidu with conspiracy and cited the example of how the Krishnapatnam Power Project was ready for commissioning and how he was not keen on going ahead with it immediately. This showed that the AP government only wanted to hit out at the Telangana Government, causing inconvenience to the people, they added.

TS GENCO Director ( Hydel) CH Venkata Rajam said that the power generation centre was operating at its full capacity of 900 MW. Keeping in mind the growing demand for power in Telangana, the government decided not to stop generation as requested by the AP. He said the generation at the Left Bank power project unit was contributing about 18 Million Units (MUs) of the total requirement of 140 MUs. If the generation was stopped, power crisis would get further aggravated in the Telangana State.

The Genco officials said that the AP offered to compensate only 300 MW. But that would not help the power utilities meet the demand. Meanwhile, the Telangana government also deployed police forces at the project site located on the border between Telangana and Rayalaseema in Mahbubnagar district in view of attacks from the Rayalaseema side in the past.