Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

`Electricity duty' on captive units: CM

By Our Special Correspondent

Hyderabad March 25. The Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, has announced that a separate `electricity duty' will be levied on the captive units from the Government side outside the purview of the Electricity Regulatory Commission.

This, he said, is to serve two purposes: to discourage captive generation and ensure further cross-subsidy for "less capacity'' consumers. This will be in addition to grid support and wheeling charges announced by the Electricity Regulatory Commission in its order yesterday, which will fetch Rs 51 crores and Rs 270 crores respectively.

At a press conference here on Monday, called by him in the light of the power tariff hike, Mr Naidu came out with an action plan for the power sector to tone up the system and achieve the long-term goals envisaged by the reforms. He quoted the transmission and distribution losses finally and officially at 24.8 per cent, clearing the continuing doubts, and said that the plan would reduce this to an ideal 24 per cent by this year-end. Dwelling on the investments and interventions to be made, he said Rs 173 crores would be spent on installation of capacitors, foot-valves, PVC pipes to save power on agriculture pumpsets. An amount of Rs 700 crores was being spent on equipment for separation of agriculture feeders for ensuring 24-hour supply to rural areas from August 15 as promised. Apart from this, Rs 100 crores was set aside for purchase of meters for installation in the domestic sector.

Thc Chief Minister said that he was contemplating installing prepaid meters in areas which did not stop pilferage and continued the offence.

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• `Electricity duty' on captive units: CM
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