Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy on Saturday said the state government is willing to buy electricity at even the higher price of Rs 7.50 paise per unit to overcome power shortage in the next three to four months.
Insisting that the prevailing power shortage was “no fault of the government”, but caused due to bad rains among other factors, he said the electricity production is 60 million units less this year, compared to last year.
The CM said it is crucial to understand that the state government is trying to buy power at a higher rate. “Use power-saving bulbs and technology; one unit of electricity saved is equal to 1.2 unit of electricity produced.
So use it judiciously,” he advised, while inaugurating the two-day property show of AP Real Estate Developers’ Association on Saturday.
Explaining the power subsidy, he said the state government was giving electricity to farmers and citizens at highly subsidised rates.
Of the total Rs 5,500 crore subsidy, Rs 3,500 crore is towards power supplied to farmers and the remaining to over one crore households in AP.
Moving to other matters, he said Visakhapatnam (in Andhra), Tirupati (in Rayalaseema), and Karimnagar or Warangal (in Telangana) will get an international-level conference centre on the lines of the Hyderabad Interna-tional Convention Centre. He asked housing minister Uttam Kumar Reddy to suggest a district in Telangana for the purpose.
He encouraged the builders and developers, saying the real estate market in the city and state has improved this year compared to last year. “You will do much better next year,” he said.
However, touched the dark side of the sector when he asked the builders to sell litigant-free properties to citizens.