Lenient stand likely on illegal power connections

Retreating from its earlier stand on weeding out unauthorised agricultural power connections under intense political pressure both from within and outside, the state government today announced that it would soon come out with a comprehensive policy after extensive consultations to make the programme more judicious.

Addressing a media conference soon after the all-party meeting which discussed the government's contentious stand on unauthorised connections among other issues, chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy said that the government would take a lenient view on the existing illegal connections to the extent the local distribution systems could absorb the additional load during the current kharif season.

The sate government would hold wide consultations with the various farmers' organisations and experts on fine-tuning the free-power programme.

The chief minister said that the issues like chalking out eligibility criteria for the programme and excluding corporate and big farmers from the scheme would also be discussed in depth.

The chief minister explained that the existing agriculture services had been exposed to great danger as low voltage and consequent burning of pump sets were occurring on account of additional load on the system due to unauthorised new connections.

"We are very much concerned about the existing connections and any additional load may affect the system causing greater harm. Yet, the government will take a humanitarian view on the unauthorised connections till the end of the current season. Wherever the systems cannot withstand the additional load, we will give priority to smaller farmers," he said.

All the parties, including the Congress allies like CPI, CPI (M) and TRS, asked the government to regularise all the unauthorised agricultural connections.

The opposition TDP and BJP went a step further demanding that the government implement the free power scheme without attaching any strings to it. "When you promised free power to all the farmers, implement it," wasthe stand taken by the main opposition and its ally at the all-party meeting.

The TDP deputy leader in the Assembly, N Janardhan Reddy, and BJP state president N Indrasena Reddy termed the issue of unauthorised power connections as a ploy to dilute the free power scheme.

"Congress has the habit of going back on election promises. Punjab is a living example which withdrew the free power programme to farmers," Indrasena Reddy said.

Irrespective of their own stand on the issue like free power, both the parties maintained that it was their primary responsibility to see that the government implemented its promise totally.

Speaking to the media, CPI (M) state committee secretary B V Raghavulu said that the party had advised the government to devise the eligibility criteria for the programme and remove the ineligible from the purview of the scheme.

"It is quite natural that more and more farmers aspire to utilise the free power scheme. Moreover, the Congress never bothered to tell the people about the constraints of the programme within which it should be implemented. So let the government first come out with a comprehensive policy," Raghavulu said.

CPI state secretary Narayana and TRS leader Madhusudhanachary took serious exception to the behaviour of the TDP leaders at the all-party meeting. According to them, throughout the meeting the TDP leaders insisted the government first spell out whether it would go ahead with weeding out of unauthorised connections or not.

Taking exception to the comments of TDP leaders on the government's stand on unauthorised connections, finance minister K Rosaiah said that the people were still aware of what happened to them when the Telugu Desam was in power.

"The TDP government in the past fired bullets on people besides putting thousands of them in jails for opposing abnormal hike in power tariff," he said, adding that the Congress government was firmly committed to free power.