At Pragathi Bhavan, Telangana CM K Chandrashekhar Rao on Wednesday announced in a review meeting that the government will provide all necessary financial assistance to Telangana state power utilities. The announcement comes in the light of Ministry of Power’s order for Discoms to issue a letter of credit for power purchase.
CM Rao emphasized on the role of these electricity organizations in the Telangana’s development. Therefore he instructed Financial officers to come up with a contingency plan to help these power utilities as required. He, quoted by ANI, said: ” The government will protect them since the state’s development is dependent on electricity organizations.” He also called for strict methods to make Discoms financially stable.
He also said that to ensure timely payment of dues by government institutions and local bodies in the state, the required mechanism will be set up. For this, he came up with ‘Power week’ that would be announced soon to settle all electricity-related issues in villages and towns. This period will be accompanied by a 60-day timeline of action campaign during which rectification of twisted poles, clearing of bills and etc. will be taken up.
Chief Minister was reported saying “From now, village panchayats, municipalities, corporations, and HMWS should pay their power bills every month. If not, the sarpanch and village secretary, in villages, and the chairperson, and commissioners, in municipalities, will be punished,”.
He urged the Finance department to pay the bills of those departments who are unable to pay their dues on time. The payment will be made out of their budgetary allocations.
He also directed civic body officials to install prepaid electricity meters at all departments. For the ease of farmers, he promised that the government will bear the cost of lift irrigation and power projects.
His government is also planning to bring a statutory law for making it compulsory for all land designs in towns and cities to make provision for assigning land for substations and transformers. He also advised using solar power to meet rising demands of lift irrigation schemes, because of its cheap rate.