Over 6,000 small and medium units, especially in the textiles, steel and ferro alloys sectors, have been forced to down their shutters, resulting in more than 2 lakh people being rendered jobless in the last 18 months due to the ongoing power crisis in the state, said state’s industry and trade body Federation of Andhra Pradesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Fapcci) on Monday.
To add to the woes of industry, power tariffs have doubled in the last three years from Rs 3.50 per unit in 2010 to over Rs 7 per unit in 2013, said Fapcci president Devendra Surana, while addressing the media here on Monday to highlight the power woes of industry.
According to Surana, the high power tariffs coupled with erratic power are slowly but surely choking to death the state’s manufacturing sector, which has degrown by 11.5% in 2012 and currently contributes a meagre 1% of the state’s GDP. He pointed out that the latest Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) order has imposed a heavy burden of 25 to 60% power tariff hike on industrial consumers, which industry cannot afford to pay.
Narsing Rao of the Medak Small Scale Industries Association, said that most of the small units located in and around Medak are resorting to distress sales of their units due to tariffs and acute shortage of power.
Federation of Andhra Pradesh Small Industries Association (Fapsia) president J Nageswara Rao said production has drastically come down by 45% and employment by 40% in the small scale sector due to the acute power shortages. “Incentives and subsidies have been pending for the last four years to the tune of Rs 1,200 crore,” he said.
Steel Manufacturers’ Association president Suresh Kumar Singhal said that the steel industry in the state is dying as it is getting only 35% of its total power requirement over the past 18 months. “Power is the main input for the steel industry but not only are we getting only a fraction of our total requirement, its cost too has escalated, pushing up our input costs as power accounts for 30-35% of our total input costs.”
According to Surana, while the total power shortage in the state is about 18%, the industry is being subjected to 50% power cuts for the past 18 months. “The state of industry in AP is becoming worse day-by-day. We are not only being neglected by the government but are being singled out to pay through our nose for the power usage of the agricultural sector in the state,” Surana said.
According to Fapcci, the total cost of supply of subsidised power in AP was Rs 7,552 crore in fiscal 2012-13 and the government bore 73% of the total cost at Rs 5,532 crore, while the rest of the burden has been passed on to the industry as Fuel Surcharge Adjustment (FSA).
In 2013-14, while the total cost of subsidized power has been pegged at Rs 14,866 crore, the government has decided to bear only 40% of it (Rs 5,884 crore), implying that it would be dumped on the industry. “It doesn’t take an intelligent guess to figure out who will bear the rest of the burden,” said Surana, pointing out that this will only worsen the already critical condition of industry in the state.
The government has not only turned a blind eye to the woes of industries in the state but has also failed to keep its earlier promises such as refund of value added tax on diesel and removal of electricity duty on captive generation, said Fapcci secretary general M V Rajeshwara Rao. Another Fapcci official warned that the government will not be able to fulfill its promise of adding 2,200 MW this year and will only be able to add 860 MW, leading to a long-drawn shortage of power in the state.
Close to 20 lakh households in Hyderabad experienced total television blackout on Monday as the city’s four major Multi System Operators (MSOs) withdrew services by noon, keeping with the March 31 deadline for installing set-top boxes (STB).
Around 10-12 lakh subscribers of Hathway, the city’s biggest MSO which serves 65% of cable TV users, had to content without television while 6.8 lakh customers of Digi Cable were affected. Subscribers of Citi Cable and CTV services, the two other operators, were also affected. Rough estimates suggest that more than 25 lakh households in Hyderabad use cable TV.
An MSO receives transmission from channel broadcasters (television networks) and extends it to local cable operators (LCO). The LCOs provide connectivity to homes. Of the total number of cable TV users in the city, nearly 35% have already gone digital before the deadline. The remaining 65% that has failed to install the STB, either owing to lack of awareness or short supply of the device, were left without reception on Monday.
A senior official from Hathway said that their customers in some areas of Medak district like Sangareddy too faced a blackout besides those within Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation limits. Cable operators get frantic calls
“We have acted as per the Centre’s deadline. The connections will not be restored until there is a directive from the authorities or the court on the matter,” said the official adding that they are prepared with sufficient number of STBs to support their customers. So far, only eight lakh Hathway customers (of the total 18 lakh) have gone digital, the official informed.
The number of STB users of Digi Cable too is an abysmal 1.25 lakh. The operator has eight lakh subscribers in the city. “The services of the remaining viewers have been disrupted,” confirmed Imtiaz Ahmed, vice- president, South Operators for Digi Cable. MSOs also told INN that they were forced to comply with the Centre’s directive as some broadcasters (television channel networks) had stopped transmission during morning hours, indicating that the Centre was in no mood to relent.
Predictably, many people were found frantically calling their cable operators all through the day in the hope of getting their connections restored. Their pleas failed to yield any result with the operators insisting on the need for installing STB. “We thought the deadline was not implemented as television signals were available till 11 am. But after that, it was withdrawn. We eventually purchased a box from our cable operator,” said KNaveen.
While the rising demand for the box resulted in a shortage of stocks among cable operators, it saw brisk business in the ‘grey markets’ of Koti. “We sold 400 boxes in the last four days but we are out of stock now. We hope we will be able to replenish it from the service operators” said Narender Goud, a cable operator from Habsiguda.
District joint collector E Sreedhar, nodal officer overseeing the implementation, said “We have repeatedly conveyed to the Centre that there is problem with the implementation. But we are yet to receive a reply.” The JC also wrote to the Centre seeking the extension of deadline by a month though the chief minister’s Sunday missive asking for a similar extension evoked no response from the Union government.
Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam are two cities among the 38 cities in the country with a population of more than 10 lakh that were selected for the second phase implementation of Digital Addressable Cable Systems. March 31 was the deadline set by ministry of information and broadcasting for the STB implementation.
Rattled by the protests over the power tariff hike both from the opposition parties and within, the Kiran Kumar Reddy government has directed the energy department officials to quickly work out a method which could soften the blow to some extent.
According to sources, the state government is likely to bear another Rs 108 crore in order to give relief to the consumers who consume 0-50 units per month and are above 500 watt load by way of reducing the tariff to Rs 1.45 per unit from Rs 2.60. Despite the government claiming that this would benefit about 97 lakh of the total 2.5 crore consumers in the state, statistics in the discoms show that the move would benefit not more than 42 lakh people. The AP Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) has already spared those who consume 0-50 units with below 500 watt connected load slab from the tariff hike. Since many consumers are now using fans and coolers, their connected load has crossed 500 watts bringing them into higher tariff category. The CM wants to provide relief to the consumers belonging to this category.
The chief minister has also asked the officials to examine whether there is any possibility to give relief to consumers in the 51 to 100 unit slab. This category has the highest number of consumers in the state with over 57 lakh consumers. They have been subjected to a 0.65 paise hike per unit. “We are working out the modalities to see whether this 0.65 paise hike can be reverted. By bringing down the cost per unit to Rs 2.60 for this category of consumers, the discoms revenue will come down by Rs 150 crore. If it works out, the government will reimburse this amount,” the sources said.
The CM will take a final decision on this matter on April 4 and will announce the same on April 5. Overall, a burden of Rs 200 to 250 crore would be reimbursed by the state government,” disclosed a senior official in the energy department.
After taking a decision on the reduction, the state government has to submit a request to the APERC stating its intention to reimburse part of the burden imposed through the tariff hike. And only after the APERC clearance the relief can be extended to the consumers. In all probability, power consumers may be forced to pay the increased power bills for the month of April and the relief is likely to happen only from May.
Under fire from all sides after the steep hike in power tariff, chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy has promised to take a relook at the whole issue after his return to Hyderabad. He assured that the state government would take all steps to see that common man is not burdened with the new tariff. Addressing a public meeting here on Monday, the CM said he would review the power tariff cleared by the Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission on April 4 and 5.
The chief minister has so far been uncompromising on the new power tariff by saying that people would have to take the burden for what they are consuming and that there is no point in extending the benefits of subsidies to the high-end consumers. However, in a turnaround Kiran announced that he would review the tariff hike as he has been facing flak even from the ruling party He said about 450-550 mw of power is being purchased every month at a high price to supply to the agriculture sector. “The government spends about Rs 5,500 crore on power subsidies to various categories,” he said. The CM said the government would spend Rs 85,000 crore to provide water to about 33 lakh acres in the next two years.
Aarti Sharma, a 29-year-old program manager with an IT major, was enjoying a successful run professionally and was about to tie the knot in November this year. But some seven months ago, she started experiencing anxiety and mood swings. Also, she began suffering sleepless nights twicethrice in a week. Her menstrual cycle, too, became irregular.
Referred to a gynaecologist by her physician, Sharma (name changed to protect identity) got the shock of her life when she was told that she was entering menopause. “I was shocked. I went blank. My marriage had already been planned and here I was being told that I am on the verge of entering menopause. Soon, I was put on hormonal balancing therapy to support my menstrual cycle. I was also suggested to try integrated treatment of homoeopathy and yoga, which has finally started showing results,” Sharma said.
Sharma’s is not an isolated case and it can be a warning bell for many urban women. Doctors are finding a drastic change in the biological clocks of women as the mean age of contracting menopause has come down to around 35 years—about 10 years early than what it was a decade ago. Gynaecologists confirmed treating women entering menopause as early as in their late 20s or early 30s.
Worrying Trend
- Gynaecologists say many women now entering menopause in late 20s or early 30s
- 5-yr long study in Bangalore found that almost half of the 980 women surveyed entered menopause at between 30 and 35 yrs
- Urban lifestyle and rising stress among possible factors Modern lifestyle a major reason
A five-year long study conducted by Sattvam, a city-based care centre for women and children, found that 432 of the 980 women covered entered menopause in the age group of 30-35 years, while 216 were between 35-40 years age. The centre has also treated 68 women, who entered menopause in the age group of 25-30 years, while 264 women were above 40 years of age.
“What is worrying is that 42% of these women are working women. Ramifications of early menopause in some cases have been so extreme that it has adversely affected their profession and in some cases their personal life too. Most of them complained of frequent mood swings, depression, anxiety and sleeplessness. All these are capable of causing many other lifestyle diseases,” said Dr Deepak Shah, a homoeopath and director, Sattvam. Dr Gayatri Karthik, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, Manipal Hospitals, said: “Entering menopause in late 20s or early 30s is not very common, but still we get about 2-3 such cases in a year. I treated a 27-year-old patient for menopause about a year ago. Urban lifestyle, increasing use of artificial reproductive techniques and stress among others can be the reasons behind this. But with science making so much of progress and techniques available for assisted reproduction women need not worry.”
Despite the Andhra Pradesh chief minister’s claim that panchayat elections would be held in June, the government is likely to go slow on it, Congress sources said, even as the lack of progress in preparing reservation pattern has kept the election commission in wait mode.
It is not just the aggressive opposition campaign against power crisis in the state that seems to have discouraged Kiran Kumar Reddy, who was otherwise jubilant on the back of the victory in co-operative polls, but also the turbulence in the UPA government in Delhi in the wake of Mulayam Singh Yadav threatening to pull out support to the government.
“On the one hand, the state is reeling under an unprecedented power crisis and acute shortage of drinking water, of which the opposition parties are set to take advantage. On the other hand, there is political uncertainty in the Centre. It’s really not a very conducive situation for the state government to hold local body polls, which would set the tone for the parliament and assembly elections ahead,” said a senior Congress leader.
Some ministers and legislators, especially from Rayalaseema and Telangana regions, are understood to have urged the CM to put off the polls considering the power and water situation. “Addressing the issues of power supply and drinking water should be the government’s priority now. While holding panchayat elections is important, it would be better if we go to polls after we get some relief with a good monsoon. As the situation is not encouraging right now, even the electorate would not be enthused by the idea of elections,” minor irrigation minister T G Venkatesh, who represents Kurnool in Rayalaseema, said before he left for a foreign tour on Friday. Meanwhile, certain technicalities are also set to delay the polls.
The government is required to send the reservation pattern to the election commission in accordance with the Supreme Court’s judgment last month. But state election commissioner S P Ramakanth Reddy said he is yet to receive it and that without it, the election process cannot be started. “The state government should have sent the reservation pattern with details of the population break-up by now. While I don’t know what the cause of the delay is, we are left with no option but waiting,” Ramakantha Reddy said.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had ruled that panchayat polls could be held with the existing reservation pattern that ensures 34% quota for backward communities, 18.3% for SCs and 8.25% for STs. The apex court ruling had come against a high court ruling that had struck down the reservation percentages on the grounds that the overall reservation would exceed the cap of 50%.
While the current reservation pattern is based on the 2001 census, the registrar general & census commissioner (RGCS) is expected to release a new register based on the 2011 census by April 15. This is making the state government ambivalent about conducting the panchayat polls as the apex court order may be infructuous once the new census register is in place.
“I think we are running against time. If we want to hold the polls as early as June like the CM said, we need to send the reservation pattern to the election commission at least by April 10 and obtain the election announcement before the release of the new census register. But there is no progress to this. The new census register would open scope for litigants to move court with a fresh petition which would create a new hurdle for the polls,” said an official in the panchayat raj department.
When contacted, minister for panchayat raj K Jana Reddy said the government was not oblivious to the technicalities and was taking steps to hold the elections at the earliest. “As such, there has been no formal announcement on the panchayat polls and there is no binding schedule. However, as the chief minister said, the polls may tentatively be held in June,” he said.
Holding panchayat polls is imperative for rural infrastructure development. The state failed to secure central grants worth Rs 3,000 crore from the 13th Finance Commission in the current financial year for providing drinking water and sanitation in rural areas because it had not held local body elections. The state also lost around Rs 1,000 crore last year after the Centre stopped the grants meant for local bodies from the second quarter. The term of the panchayat raj institutions, comprising 1,094 zilla parishad territorial constituency (ZPTC) members, 14,591 mandal parishad territorial constituency (MPTC) members and 21,843 sarpanches ended in July 2011. Since then, these posts have been under the control of special officers.
Indian political calculus is amazing. When Indian political parties do not have any other concrete plan to execute or tell meaningful things or show any positive direction on the eve of any General Election, they take recourse to a hoax called ‘Third Front’.
At one time Third Front concept was successful when a great leader like Jay Prakash Narayan emerged to form a coalition to enjoy the trust of the people. With the passage of time, bygone are those golden days when people thought that there could be an alternative to the corrupt parties in power.
Such hope is no more alive with opportunists like Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayavati, Jayalalitha and even the confused Communist parties. But sorry to say, The Third Front has no present, no future. It is a historical truth, a glorious event in the political chronicle of India.
The UPA led Congress is now a sinking boat. The withdrawal of support by DMK, BS, and BSP occurred. BJP is very much a house in disarray with Modi – Advani – Sushma – Gadkari feud. Anna and Kejriwal shouts are now very much a whimper and no more a big bang. The biggest challenge against the formation of Third Front is the disunity of the Third Front members themselves.
Among the hopeful ones, the loud voices are those of H.D. Deve Gowda and CPI(M) supremo Prakash Karat. But they too lack confidence in chasing the will-o-the-wisp. The competition for the Prime Minister’s post has always been a matter of concern for the people of India when the Third Front partners start quarrelling for the hot seat.
The Third Front is needed because the Congress led UPA does not deserve a third term for various reasons, the most important one is corruption. It is a government of the scams and for the scams. Mamata Banerjee’s support to the UPA is not much impossible now with the great financial crisis and the constitutional crisis in the state following the tussle with the Election Commission over the Panchayat Poll, 2013.
With Congress support, some silver lining may be seen in the present state of turmoil. Moreover, Chidambaram’s assurance of special package for some states which is reciprocated by Mamata’s political support to the UPA on a few recent issues particularly on Sri Lanka and Sanjay Dutt has made the Third Front formation a distant possibility. Mayavati –Mulayam tussle is there and Mulayam’s support from outside is really mysterious with all the hobnobbing with NDA leaders. NDA or UPA – but where is the Third Front?
The simple answer is – Nowhere we visualize the Third Front. After DMK’s ouster on the Tamil-Srilankan issue, which is also very much an opportunist gimmick rather than political, ADMK supremo is ready for extending support (from outside!) to UPA. DMK supremo wanted to quit UPA long ago when Sonia Gandhi showed some flexibility to Jayalalitha.
There is no chance for majority for any single party in the coming one or two decades and there is a need for Front formation. BJP is communal and there is no certainty that BJP led NDA will not be as corrupt as Congress led UPA. But there is also a chance of Congress BJP alliance in case of a strong Third Front.
Congress led UPA or BJP led NDA, have lost utter confidence of the people. The NDA minus Modi can still get rid of the communal tag. People of Indo Pak subcontinent can never forget anything that is related to communal riots. So BJP cannot be wooed by Congress in any way. The Congress has one advantage over BJP in this regard. The secularism tag is almost like a brand name for the party although it is no less responsible for the riots here and there.
It has no leader now to lead the country except the novice politician Rahul Gandhi who without having the Nehruvian tag could not have become even a State President of the party. But now everything has to be accepted and the other opportunist political parties including the Communists have prepared for abject surrender to Congress and UPA.
The political parties are losing credibility so fast that a new formation of a new front or alliance is next to impossible. To wait for a Third Front is now like waiting for Godot. The country is like a tiger locked in slumber. When it wakes up, things may take terrible dimensions which these rotten politicians cannot even imagine.
Power seems to have gone to the heads of the leaders of all parties including ministers of the state, literally.
While Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy tested the waters by claiming that power tariff hike was inevitable a few days ago and the AP Electricity Regulatory Commission doing the rest, it’s time for the opposition parties to hit the streets.
The state government has erred in its judgment and lacked the foresight in reading the gas and coal shortage two years ago and the opposition parties are behaving in an irresponsible manner instead of finding a solution to the issue.
The Chief Minister did nothing except leading Congress MPs from the state to the Centre and writing letters to the Union Ministers seeking additional coal and power supply.
On their part, had the 30 Congress MPs from the state put up the same spirited fight, like they did for and against Telangana, and exerted pressure on the party leadership in seeking an everlasting solution to the problem, the situation would have been much different.
The Telugu Desam has nearly dozen MPs in the Parliament and they could have ruckus in both the Houses and got credit for making the Centre see reason but still, they want to blame the Congress.
Telugu Desam president N Chandrababu Naidu undertook day-long fast at Kakinada while the Communist parties have staged protests all over the strike over power tariff hike on Monday, which is a prelude to the AP bandh call given by them on April 9.
The Communists opposed setting up of new power plants in the state but want nine hour free power supply to the agricultural sector, no hike in power charges and no collection of fuel surcharge from the consumers. The only way to satisfy them is that the state government needs a magic wand or Alladdin’s lamp.
MIM leader Akbaruddin Owaisi condemns the power tariff hike but why doesn’t he tell the people in the old city, where his party holds the sway, to pay power bills regularly? Even the staff is not allowed inside the houses and illegal tapping of power is a common thing in certain areas in the walled city.
Union Minister K Chiranjeevi will be the first in queue to write letter to his Cabinet colleague Ghulam Nabi Azad expressing his unhappiness over power tariff hike while other Union Ministers expressed concern in private.
Why he did not write similar letters to Union Power Minister Jyothiraditya Scindia and Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Veerappa Moily seeking additional gas and power for the state in the past?
Chiranjeevi has been aware of the problem much before he became Rajya Sabha member and his subsequent elevation as Union Minister and writing a letter to Azad is nothing but hypocrisy and only for cheap publicity.
Another senior leader V Hanumantha Rao demanded that the Chief Minister should have discussed the issue with party leaders in Gandhi Bhavan as it was election year.
Will it be OK for him if the government increases the charges after elections and perhaps even the APERC officials to such meeting and direct them not to hike charges till the elections are over.
The Member of Parliament should enlighten the entire state about his feelings and he would do if he was the chief minister.
Now the Chief Minister says he would review the hike in power tariff after his three day visit to Nellore district and take a final decision by April 5. He should have done this exercise much earlier to avoid the present day’s scenario.
Senior BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu, who has been elected to Rajya Sabha from Karnataka, finds fault with the Congress for its lack of planning but he can also help the state to tide over the crisis by requesting the BJP government in Karnataka to release water from Almatti dam.
APCC Chief Botcha Satyanarayana said that though the Congress did not make any promise to increase power charges in its election manifesto in 2009, the government will bear the power charges of the poor and middle class consumers.
What is puzzling is that he should have requested the Chief Minister to direct the power utilities not to put up any such proposals to the APERC three months ago instead of shedding tears now.
The new-born YSR Congress too is critical of the power tariff hike and promises to implement the promises made by late chief minister Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy after coming to power in the state. But still there is one year to go and no one what lies in future for them and the harassed consumers.
Mumbai Police has kicked up a controversy following its circular which says the women’s wing of an Islamic organisation is “brainwashing and training girls for jihad”. The outfit has threatened legal action if no apology is tendered by the police.
The “internal circular” said the Girls Islamic Organisation (GIO) of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, one of the country’s largest Islamic organisations that runs 40 high schools and three junior colleges in Maharashtra, has been operating with the objective of “brainwashing college and school girls and train them for jihad”.
“The group GIO is related to Jamaat-e-Islami Hind and it was established in Kerala. The purported aim of this organisation is to make more and more Muslim women aware of their religion and the holy Quran. But the real objective of this organisation is to brainwash school and college girls and train them for jihad,” the circular, issued last month, says.
The outfit, Girls Islamic Organisation of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, has threatened legal action if no apology is tendered by the police.
The document, meant for internal circulation, got leaked and has invited the wrath of Jamaat with its Maharashtra spokesman Mohammad Aslam Ghazi threatening to sue the police department if it does not apologise. Ghazi alleged it was a deliberate attempt to tarnish the image of the socio-religious organisation.
“The circular was leaked with vicious intentions. The allegations against GIO are false and baseless,” he said. “The Mumbai police either has to prove the allegations or apologise for the error. Otherwise, we would sue them for defamation,” said Ghazi, adding their organisation worked for “peace, justice and to fight against prejudice of the state machinery”.
Mumbai police spokesman Satyanarayana Choudhary said “the circular was meant to be only for the department and not for public.”
Earlier, Mumbai police had got embroiled in a row over a poem by a traffic police inspector Sujata Patil published in an issue of the force’s in-house journal ‘Samwad’ where she had described last year’s Azad Maidan protesters as “snakes” and “traitors” whose hands should have been “chopped off”.
Amid threat of legal action and mounting anger of Mulim organisations, Patil had apologised in writing. The apology was published in the next issue of Samwad.
