AMARAVATI: Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy rubbished reports of excessive power bills saying there is no change in the 2020-21 power tariff for consumers who use up to 500 units, and there is no scope of excessive billing.

He said that the lockdown imposed due to coronavirus pandemic obviously resulted in higher power consumption. Hence, power bills generated are commensurate with the increased power used by consumers.

Until 2013-14, there were only two slabs. Later, the TDP government had increased slabs in the name of the static system based on previous year consumption for revenue. This year, APERC held extensive consultations and changed it to dynamic by taking previous month's reading, the minister said.

"We have one of the lowest power tariffs in India for those who consume less than 200 units per month," he said.

Speaking about power purchase dues, he disclosed all the details pertaining to it. Power purchase dues as on March 31, 2014: Rs 4,900 cr, March 31, 2019: Rs 20,100 cr, December 31, 2019: Rs 15,000 cr, he informed. The dues increased five times during the TDP regime because of mismanagement of discoms.

"We paid Rs 5000 cr in 6 months. Subsidies to be given by the government to discoms also increased between 2014 and 2019 during TDP rule," the minister informed.

"In March 2014, the dues were zero and had a drastic increase and dues went up to 7,192 crores. We brought it down to Rs 3,900 crore by December 2019," the minister said.

"The power purchase cost was at Rs 4.33 per unit in March 2014. TDP took it up to Rs 6.07 per unit by 2019. We now brought it down to Rs 5.66 per unit by December 2019. APGENCO dues were Rs 2,100 crore in 2014. It shot up to Rs 11, 350 crore by 2019. We brought it down to Rs 6,790 crore," the minister said.

"Power Purchase dues went up to Rs 19,400 crore by 2019 which was Rs 4,990 crore in 2014. We brought it down to Rs 14,000 crore by December, 2019. Power utilities outstanding loan increased to Rs 63,500 crore from Rs 31,650 cr in 2014, and power utilities losses increased to Rs 30,000 crore by 2019 from Rs 7,069 crore in 2014," he said.

Besides, clearing power purchase dues and subsidies, we also brought loans at lower rates. We are also purchasing power at much lower costs from exchanges, he told.

"Only those who consumed over 500 units would have gotten a marginally higher bill that too only Rs 0.90 per unit as per the tariff fixed by APERC. We have asked the energy department to upload power consumption details and bills of 1.45 crore users online so that they can verify themselves," he said.

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