Leaders of Telugu Desam Party, Congress and Left parties have resolved at a round-table meeting held under the aegis of the CPI State Council here on Thursday on the imposition of an unbearable burden on the electricity consumers in the form of true-up charges and smart meters, to stage a massive protest on the lines of the anti-power tariff hike agitation at Basheerbagh in which several protestors were killed.
Presiding over the meeting, CPI State secretary K. Ramakrishna said the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) government was overenthusiastic in implementing the power sector reforms brought about by the Centre, and alleged that the scheme of installation of smart meters was fraught with irregularities.
He expressed regret that a heavy burden was imposed on the consumers in the form of true-up charges, and the government was not prepared to even hear about their woes.
TDP leaders Payyavula Keshav and Bonda Umamaheswara Rao sought to know why the power tariffs were not increasing in the neighbouring Odisha, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, while the Jagan Mohan Reddy government made the consumers in Andhra Pradesh to shell down a huge sum by jacking up the tariffs surreptitiously.
They alleged that the State government took the rulings of the AP Electricity Regulatory Commission for granted and was acting as per its whims and fancies.
Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee president Gidugu Rudraraju said the State government was extracting exorbitant sums from the electricity through seven different ways which were apparently beyond the grasp of the lower rung officials of the power utilities. CPI(M) State secretary V. Srinivasa Rao, CPI leader Muppalla Nageswara Rao, CPI (ML) Liberation’s D. Haranath and others took part in the deliberations.
