Power Tariff Hike During Festive Season? Harish Rao Slams Government

Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) Legislature Party Deputy Leader T. Harish Rao has criticised the Telangana government for imposing an additional burden of ₹5,420 crore on consumers through higher electricity charges at a time when people are already struggling with the impact of El Niño and rising prices of essential commodities. Speaking to the media at Telangana Bhavan on Tuesday, alongside BRS MLAs Kaleru Venkatesh, Bandari Lakshma Reddy and Chinta Prabhakar, and former ministers C.H. Laxma Reddy and Koppula Eshwar, Harish Rao said the government should have announced relief to people during the Dussehra and Diwali festive season instead of increasing power tariffs. He questioned the decision to recover the expenditure incurred on power purchases directly from consumers and recalled the significance of the Bashirbagh firing incident in the Telangana movement.

Harish Rao said the previous BRS government had taken steps to strengthen the power sector after coming to power. Although the Electricity Regulatory Commission had proposed true-up charges of ₹12,718.40 crore for the period from 2016-17 to 2021-22, the burden was not passed on to consumers, he claimed. He alleged that the Congress government had pushed the power sector into a crisis due to a lack of advance planning and administrative negligence, leaving power utilities burdened with debt and shifting the financial burden onto the public. Harish Rao demanded that the government immediately withdraw the tariff hike and warned that the BRS would launch a large-scale public movement if the decision was not reversed. He also appealed to the CPI and CPI(M) to join the proposed agitation.