TDP to counter Opposition campaign

By R.J. Rajendra Prasad

HYDERABAD, JUNE 18. In a unique campaign, the Telugu Desam Party is organising ``gram sabhas'' all over Andhra Pradesh for a week from Monday, in order to explain the reason behind the power tariff hike. The Congress (I) and the Left parties, which have been conducting an agitation for the past fortnight over the hike, have called upon followers to disrupt these meetings.

The meetings are being organised by dozens of teams constituted by District Collectors, on behalf of the Transmission Corporation of the State (TRANSCO), to identify people pilfering power in the villages. The TRANSCO will take on-the-spot action against those involved. Both the Telugu Desam and Opposition parties want to use these meetings for political advantages.

The new rates of power have already come into effect from June 4, with the rate in the 0-50 units per month having gone up from 80 paise to 135 paise, in the 51-200 units bracket from 165 paise to 295 paise, and in the 201-400 from 290 to 450 paise. The Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission and the Transmission Corporation of Andhra Pradesh have put up advertisements in newspapers explaining the reasons for the hike, and giving a comparative statement of the tariff in other States, but the Congress(I) leader, Mr. K. Rosiah, and State CPI(M) Secretary, Mr. B.V.Raghavulu, have dismissed these arguments as being ``misleading and bogus''.

While a contentious debate is on in the State, the Government proposes to introduce a bill on meting stringent punishment to those stealing power. Meetings that the District Collectors organised last week to elicit public opinion were disrupted in some districts by activists of the Left parties. There were rumblings within the Telugu Desam too, against the steep hike, and some members had pleaded for a rollback to mollify the middle classes but the Chief Minister, Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, has brushed aside the criticism.

Mr. Naidu said the people will understand and sympathise with the Government, if the logic behind the financial crisis that the generation and transmission corporations faced, is convincingly explained to them. He says that West Bengal had only one lakh agricultural connections, compared to 18 lakhs in the State, and ``if we had so few, we could have given power free in Andhra Pradesh''. Even so, he said West Bengal charged more for agricultural power compared to his State.

He said the Congress(I) president, Mr. M. Sathayanarayana Rao, and the former Chief Minister, Mr. N.Janardhana Reddy, who staged a ``rasta roko'' in Hyderabad on Saturday, ``behaved worse than naxalites'' because of their call for a violent struggle. Mr. Sathyanarayana Rao had said he ``did not know which direction the agitation was going to take'', a hint that it might turn violent. Today, the Congress leaders have strongly objected to Mr. Naidu's statement.

Meanwhile. a tobacco farmer, Mattur Mohan Rao (48), committed suicide in Choutupalli, near Kanchikacharla in Krishna district, because a local trader from whom he borrowed Rs. 5,000 pestered him for repayment that day. The farmer had Rs. 1 lakh worth tobacco at home, and he offered to pay in kind, but the trader demanded cash.

Tobacco farmers are in distress because of excess production, and the efforts of the State Government to persuade the Union Government to force Central agencies to buy tobacco have failed.

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