HYDERABAD: Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy on Sunday tried to impress upon Congress leaders from other States on the merits of his free power policy to the farm sector by pointing that far from causing any adverse impact, the State was now able to offer a low tariff to high tension (HT) industrial consumers.

Interacting with them during the course of his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh before the plenary session began, he told them that the performance growth achieved in power sector had been rated as number one by the CRISIL.

Lowest tariff

At the same time, power utilities had not raised tariff for other categories of consumers, the Chief Minister said.

So much so that the State was now supplying power to industries at a lowest tariff of Rs. 3.56 per unit compared to Rs. 4.80 per unit in Karnataka, Rs. 4.45 in Uttar Pradesh, and Rs. 3.59 in Orissa.

The Congress leaders are keen on knowing how the Government sustained free power supply and healthy growth of the sector. Mr. Reddy told them that free supply played a major role in putting an end to farmers' suicide.

The Government evolved a three-tier strategy. This included enhancing the installed capacity, further reduction in transmission and distribution losses and bringing down the tariff for HT consumers.

The enhanced internal efficiency of the utilities had also resulted in the decline of the Government subsidy to power sector from Rs. 1,812 crores in 2004-05 to Rs. 1,599 crores in 2005-06, he said.

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