Telangana State has only welcomed the Central government’s decision not to install energy reading meters on agricultural connections, and not the entire amendments to the Electricity Act, 2003, TS Transco and TS Genco Chairman and Managing Director D Prabhakar Rao clarified here on Friday.
The minutes of the meeting held by the Union Ministry of Power with State government officials on February 17, that has been doing the rounds on social media platforms, quotes Telangana officials as stating: “The proposals by the Ministry of Power are a welcome step.”
Prabhakar Rao, who attended the meeting conducted by Union Minister for Power and New and Renewable Energy RK Singh, however, told Telangana Today: “We only welcomed the Central government’s decision that energy reading meters would not be installed for agricultural connections.”
He said the issues of employees’ welfare i.e. surplus staff and retirement issues were also raised. Regarding Renewable Power Obligation (RPO), the penalty should be on total RPO and not individual RPO components, he said. In the meeting, the Union Minister said that while framing rules, the concerns raised will be addressed in consultation with all the stakeholders.
Some suggestions, which do not require framing of any regulations, such as up-gradation of State Load Despatch Centre (SLDC), fungibility of RPO, capacity building of regulators will be quickly taken up separately for a balanced development of the power sector, he said.
The Union Minister assured that the Central government would take into account the comments and suggestions made during the meeting, the minutes said.
