Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

Move to penalise consumers for power theft flayed

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD April 18. The Congress-I has deplored the move to penalise all the power consumers of a particular area for the pilferage and theft of power in that area.

Addressing a press conference, the APCC chief spokesman, K. Rosaiah, denounced the proposal mooted by the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, yesterday as "dangerous''.

He ridiculed the debate suggested by Mr. Naidu on the issue and demanded that the Government withdraw the proposal immediately. He said it was atrocious to make the entire lot of consumers accountable for the pilferage.

The Congress-I leader said it was the responsibility of the power utility to check the pilferage and thefts. It cannot be passed on to the consumers.

The Government claimed to have improved the system with substantial investments. But it was pleading inability to check the theft and wanted to penalise the consumers, he lamented.

Mr. Rosaiah also disputed the figures furnished by the Chief Minister about addition of the transformers and distribution lines in the last six years.

Cong-I ballot on power tariff

At the State executive meeting of the A.P. Youth Congress presided over by T. Venkat Rao on Thursday, the arrangements for the conduct of ballot on hike in power tariff was discussed. Mr. Venkat Rao and Mr. G. Rudraraju told reporters that the PCC had issued guidelines for the conduct of the poll and two observers would be deputed to each district to oversee the programme.

The cooperation of the advocates and intellectuals would be enlisted. The Congress activists would not participate in the ballot but organise campaigns to motivate people to participate in it in large numbers.

Training camps

The NSUI will conduct training camps for all the college unit incharges in the State on May 18 and 19, NSUI all India secretaries Yogender Patil and Mastan Vali and State president P. Prabhakar told reporters. A meeting of the district presidents was held today and steps to strengthen the organisation were discussed.

As many as 400 college units were set up till now. Membership enrolment and other issues were also discussed. Region-wise meetings would be held on May 5.

Mr. Prabhakar said that besides saffronisation of education, the State Government's anti-student policies like commercialisation of education would figure prominently in the training camps.

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