Former Chief Minister late Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, before coming to power in 2004, promised to the people that he would provide free power supply to farmers and that he would not increase domestic power tariff at all as long as he continued in power. And he stuck to his promise and did not go in for power tariff hike during his five-and-a half year rule.
On the other hand, during his earlier regime, Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu had increased power tariff at least five times.
Before 2014 elections, he promised not to impose any burden on the common man. But, unlike YSR, he could not stuck to his promise and increased power tariff by five per cent within nine months of coming to power.
On Tuesday, Naidu tried to defend the tariff hike saying only 16 per cent of the consumers would be affected with the hike and about 84 per cent of the domestic consumers who utilize below 200 units will not get affected with power tariff hike.
Apart from the households, he said that agriculture, aquaculture allied activities and small and medium scale industries also exempted from the hike.
He said that it was unavoidable for the government since power sector was incurring losses. He said that to maintain world class standards in power sector, there is an urgent need to improve our infrastructure and replace cutting edge technology wherever it is required. For that, government has to invest more funds on a long term basis.
Keeping in view the need to provide electricity at international standards, government moved for power tariff hike, he mentioned.
