The Andhra Pradesh government on Tuesday clarified that the levy of true-up charges from power consumers with effect from August is only due to the huge borrowings for maintenance of power infrastructure and heavy dues to Discoms during the Telugu Desam Party regime headed by N Chandrababu Naidu.
In a statement, the energy department said the power purchase dues of Discoms and maintenance expenditure which was around Rs 12,500 crore on the date of bifurcation of combined Andhra Pradesh had gone up to Rs 31,844 crore as on April 1, 2019, during the regime of Naidu.
The TDP government has not released even a single rupee to Discoms towards recovery of true-up charges.
There was no truth in the reports that the present government had asked Discoms not to submit reports true-up charges from 2014 to 2019, the statement said.
It reminded that AP Electricity Regulatory Commission noted that the power distribution companies (Discoms) were in deep financial distress and it “does not augur well for the State and consumers.”
“Therefore, the commission permitted the Discoms to recover true-up charges for distribution business for the period between 2014-15 and 2018-19,” the statement said, adding that there was no truth in the reports that the Discoms would collect Rs 6,000 crore in excess of the tariff revenue in just one year.
The APERC allowed Discoms to recover only Rs 3,669 crore in equal instalments from August 2021 with an interest of 10.3 per cent.
The commission noted that the APSPDCL and APEPDCL have cumulative losses of Rs 12,539 crore and Rs 7,749 crore by the end of 2018-19.
Since the AP government is committed to providing free power to eligible farmers, the Discoms may recover the charges from the government, the APERC suggested.
“If the State government is not willing to pay the amount, it shall be recovered from farmers,” the APERC added.