Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao said the power demand dropped by 400 to 500 MW since April 10 as agriculture operations reduced and was likely to go down further up to 700 to 1,000 MW in a week or ten days.
Recalling that the demand had peaked to 9,350 MW when the agriculture activity was in full swing during the second crop recently, Mr. Rao said at the press conference here on Wednesday that the State government saw through a difficult phase with utmost ease. The consumption of 9,350 MW was more than in the combined State.
The power situation in the State had given the industry such confidence that the units increased the capacity in their transformers.
He said Telangana would shortly be in a position to buy power from anywhere in the country as it would be connected to the grid at least by half-a-dozen transmission lines. The State would also buy another slot on the line from Chhattisgarh where it has presently booked 1,000 MW. The second slot would also be for 1,000 MW.
As Tamil Nadu had exited from Raipur- Sholapur and Angul- Palasa lines, Telangana would try to book slots on both of them which yield 1,000 to 1,200 MW each. The State was already connected by Wardha- Dichpalli super critical line and soon access Warangal- Varora and Rayagada- Pugalur lines.
Power purchase
He said the State government purchased 1,000 to 1,600 MW power, mostly during night which was cheap. It would mobilise ₹10,000 to ₹12,000 crore to access 9,000 to 10,000 MW for Kaleswaram and Palamuru- Ranga Reddy lift irrigation projects. The entire cost would be borne by the government.
On demonetisation, he said it was partly successful and hoped it would achieve the goal. The crop insurance scheme of the Centre was not perfect and needed fine-tuning. He denied any conflict with the Centre. He expressed Presidential assent to the legislation on land acquisition passed by the State Assembly in ten days. On shifting of Dharna Chowk from Indira Park, he said a final decision was not made by the government as the court was yet to give its judgement.
Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting decided to enact a State Heritage Act to bring all heritage structures in the State under its ambit. The Heritage Act at present was only confined to HUDA limits, he said.
Mr. Rao parried a question on appointing his son and Industries Minister K.T. Rama Rao as the working president of TRS. He counselled patience till the party plenary to know the truth.
Membership drive
He said the membership of the party had touched a record 75 lakh in the ongoing drive and likely to yield ₹30 crore towards fee. He would himself be a “coolie” to raise funds for the plenary and the public meeting later in Warangal. There was no clash of plenary with OU centenary celebrations as he would participate with President Pranab Mukherjee in the university fete a day ahead of the public meeting.
The Cabinet resolved to request the Centre to revive the Cement Corporation of India unit in Adilabad. It was also resolved to request the Governor to give under his quota one more term to MLCs B. Rajeswara Rao and Farooq Hussain in the Legislative Council. The meeting complimented farmers as the government had cleared all their loan instalments up to ₹1 lakh.
