Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

YSR `convinces' Sonia on free power

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD APRIL 21. The Congress will stick to its promise to provide free power to agriculturists in the State notwithstanding the views aired by the party president, Sonia Gandhi, against such concession to the farming sector elsewhere.

Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, the leader of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP), Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, claimed that he was able to prevail upon Ms. Gandhi to treat Andhra Pradesh on a different footing on the issue of free power to farmers.

Dr. Reddy said he met Ms. Gandhi in Delhi recently to seek clarifications on her observations at the conference of the Congress Chief Ministers at Guwahati relating to the free power supply in the Congress-ruled States. The CLP leader said the conditions and priorities in each State differed and he was able to convince Ms. Gandhi that the party should stick to its commitment to provide free power to farmers in view of `the suicides and alarming conditions in the farm sector in AP'. "I am quite sure, it will continue to be our election promise,'' he said. The revenues recovered by the power utility from the farm sector in the State were only about Rs. 250 to Rs. 300 crores, he added.

Dr. Reddy did not agree with the view that the free power supply failed in Punjab and other States.

It was working well in Madhya Pradesh and also in Tamil Nadu where farmers were able to surpass the productivity levels of their Andhra counterparts due to provision of free power for the last two decades, he argued.

When told that AP accounted for the largest number of 22 lakh agricultural pumpselts, Dr.Reddy retorted that providing a subsidy of about Rs. 300 crores to farmers was not a big deal compared to the State's annual revenue of Rs. 43,000 crores.

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