Jaya softens stance on power ordinance

Shortly after her conversation with Prime Minister Vajpayee, Jayalalitha, who had voiced apprehensions over the ordinance on Tuesday, issued a statement in Chennai that Karunanidhi should give up 8220;cheap attempts8221; to portray that the Centre was opposed to continuation of free electricity supply to farmers.

Alleging 8220;political motives8221; behind Karunanidhi8217;s campaign that the ordinance was anti-farmer, she said 8220;in fact,Karunanidhi is trying to indulge in an anti-Centre propaganda.8221;Blaming Karunanidhi for giving a 8220;knotty twist8221; to the issue, Kumaramangalam accused the Chief Minister of going back on the state8217;s commitment to such tariff authorities at the meeting of Chief Ministers conference in December 1996.

The minister today wrote letters to all the alliance partners in Tamil Nadu including Jayalalitha and separately to the Chief Minister explaining that the ordinance enables the state government to supply power to farmers on subsidised or zero tariff in perpetuity by subsidising the difference between the tariff fixed by the regulator and the tariff at which the state government wishes to supply electricity to farmers.

The Power Minister expressed confidence that the bill to ratify the ordinance would receive support from all parties including ADMK when it comes up in parliament.

Earlier, addressing newspersons here, Kumaramangalam said Tamil Nadu was a party to the common minimum national action plan CMNAPon power formulated at the Chief Ministers8217; conference in December 8217;96 which paved the way for Central and State regulatory commissions.

Stating that the BJP-led Government had, in fact, diluted the CMNAP provision of charging a minimum agriculture tariff of 50 paise per unit during the first year, Kumaramangalam said the present ordinance enables states to give subsidy to any class of consumers provided it reimburses the electricity boards.

The minister, who communicated his views to Jayalalitha and other political parties in Tamil Nadu, said anybody opposing the regulatory bodies would be doing so at the cost of their electricity boards and overall growth in the power sector.

To buttress the argument, he said in the present tariff regime, every megawatt of fresh capacity entails an annual loss of Rs 50 lakh and this would amount to the tune of Rs 30,000 crore annually from 2002.

Stressing upon the need for a transparent power subsidy system, he said the Tamil Nadu Government was, in fact, givingonly 45 per cent farm sector power subsidy now as against 100 per cent in 1986-87.