: Senior Congress leader and
Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy on Sunday registered his protest against the Centre's move to hand over to private players distribution of power in the Union Territories.
Speaking to reporters here, the Chief Minister alleged that Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's recent announcements on Centre's proposal to let private sectors have the right to distribute power was utterly injurious.
He said this would hit the farmers, poor families and industrial undertakings and was not acceptable to the territorial government.
The government has been offering power free of cost to farmers and levying no tariff on consumption of first 100 units of power by the poorer sections. Besides, the territorial administration has been giving incentives in power consumption to industries setting up units in Puducherry, he said.
Narayanasamy further said he has already written a letter to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi protesting the move. "I have not received any reply yet from the Prime Minister," he said.
The Chief Minister said the status quo on power distribution by the government should continue without any change.
"In Puducherry, we do not produce power except the generation of small quantum of electricity through a corporation. We buy power from other States and Central undertakings for distribution to the consumers here," he said.
Narayanasamy, expressing apprehension that the private players would hold the consumers to ransom and inflict sufferings on farmers and poorer sections, said, "Electricity comes under the concurrent list and no decision could be taken unilaterally by the Centre without consulting the State governments."
"We will oppose tooth and nail if the Centre goes ahead with its move," he said.
Referring to the continuation of lockdown, he said it alone would not be of any help to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 as had been opined by scientists and virologists since recently.
Agreeing with this view of the experts, the Chief Minister said the lockdown was only a part of the strategy but ultimately it was for the people to observe the norms of lockdown to fight the pandemic.
He criticised the arrest of the DMK organising secretary and Member of Parliament R S Bharathi saying the action taken was a politically motivated one.
Narayanasamy saidBharathi has been a strong critic of the AIADMK government, which led to the arrest. The government should have conducted a thorough probe before acting in an allegedly hasty manner.
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