Hyderabad, July 6 (KNN) Aware of the fact that economy has come to standstill due to COVID-19 pandemic and several businesses loss their existence, especially Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), TPCC Chief and Nalgonda MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy urged Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao to waive the electricity bills of MSMEs here for the entire period of lockdown.

The Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) Chief demanded the same for the Below Poverty Line (BPL) families.

Suggesting the state government to change its priorities due to the situation arising out of the spread of the pandemic, Reddy dashed off a letter to Chandrashekhar on Sunday.

“No measures are being taken to ease the burden of people affected by the prolonged lockdown for a period of over two months. Crores of people were affected, lakhs of people have lost their jobs, every single individual, family, institution, commercial firm, private business houses and industries are still under the negative impact of lockdown,” he said in the letter.

He alleged that that the state government has failed miserably to implement the ‘Trace, Test and Treat’ norm called by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the State due to which COVID cases are rising.

“Today, we witnessed a record number of new cases. On the one hand, the State government failed to contain coronavirus, and on the other, it is trying to put additional financial burden on the common people,” he alleged.

Slamming the Chandrashekhar led Telangana government, TPCC Chief said that the electricity bills issued to consumers in June were highly unjustified and inflated.

''Of the 95 lakh power consumers in Telangana, nearly 75 lakh are in the domestic category and almost 80 per cent of them consume below 200 units per month,'' he added.

He further explained that the tariff per unit is based on consumption and Telangana State Electricity Regulatory Commission (TSERC) had approved the tariff for monthly basis. However, in violation of TSERC guidelines, the TSSPDCL generated bills based on overall consumption in 90 days.

“Consequently, the consumers have been asked to pay at Rs 9 per unit instead of regular Rs 4.3 per unit due to change in category based on total number of units consumed in 90-day period,” he avowed.