HYDERABAD
The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has alleged that Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy is planning to privatise the power utilities in the State, including Singareni Collieries, which are playing a key role in the growth of State’s economy, to make easy money by handing over their share to ‘friendly’ corporate companies.
Speaking to newspersons here on Saturday, former Energy Minister G. Jagadish Reddy claimed that the State was not in a position to provide even 12-hour power supply to domestic, commercial and industrial sectors when it was formed in 2014. Within four months of coming to power, the then TRS (BRS) Government had ensured 24×7 supply to the three sectors and to the agriculture sector from December 2017 by investing heavily in strengthening the transmission and distribution infrastructure.
But now, the Congress Government appeared to be planning to privatise the energy sector by shedding its holding in all the power utilities and Mr. Revanth Reddy is planning to hand over the controlling power of Transco and Discoms to friendly private companies. The Transco was in profits and Discoms were in losses due to dues from the government, he said.
Reminding the government that privatisation of distribution business (Discoms) had not succeeded anywhere in the country, including in Odisha and cities such as Delhi and Mumbai, he said that consumers were being victimised for non-payment of other utilities’ bills like water supply. Despite political pressures, then Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao did not hand over power generation contracts to private companies and instead gave them to Genco and BHEL.
G9 coal, pit-head plants
On the issue of G9 grade coal raised by the government recently for below rated capacity generation in Yadadri Theremal Power Station (YTPS), Mr. Jagadish Reddy alleged that Mr. Revanth Reddy was making Singareni divert good quality coal including of G9 grade to Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka’s thermal plants.
He ridiculed the argument of pit-head power stations and sought to know why they were set up at Vijayawada, Muddanur (Kadapa) and why Singareni was planning to set up thermal plant in Rajasthan. He reminded that the January 26 board meeting of Singareni had recorded that G9 grade coal was being mined in 13 of its mines.
Published – September 26, 2026 08:38 pm IST
