Smart meters worth only ₹6,000 per piece is being procured for ₹30,000 each, alleges former Union Minister Chinta Mohan.
| Photo Credit: BY ARRANGEMENT
Congress senior leader Chinta Mohan has opposed the YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) government’s decision to fix smart meters to agricultural pumpsets allegedly at ‘inflated cost at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government at the Centre’.
Addressing the media at the Nellore Press Club on December 15 (Thursday), the former Union Minister questioned the need for fixing meters by the State government by raising a loan of ₹3,600 crore from the Power Finance Corporation for the purpose at a time when the State was facing a ‘grave financial crisis’, despite a strong opposition from ‘within the ruling party and outside’.
“Many States including Tamil Nadu and Telangana have refused to toe the Centre’s line on its power sector reforms aimed at currying favours with the private players,“ he pointed out and claimed that the Jagan Mohan Reddy government’s ‘downfall had started’.
Alleging a ₹1,000-crore scam in the purchase of smart meters worth only ₹6,000 per piece for ₹30,000 each, the Congress leader said that the YSRCP would meet its ‘political waterloo’ in the next elections.
Welfare and development in the State has come to a standstill. Farmers and other sections of people are getting themselves distanced from the ruling party. The State administration is in doldrums,”…
