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Maharashtra minister Prajakt Tanpure on Thursday held the previous BJP-led government in the state responsible for the increase in the amount of pending dues of the power utility from agriculture consumers to Rs 40,000 crore.
He was speaking in the Legislative Council while responding to a calling attention motion on the recent drive taken out by the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (MSEDCL) insisting farmers to repay their outstanding amount.
“When the new government (of BJP-Shiv Sena) came to power in Maharashtra in 2014, the MSEDCL’s outstanding amount from the agriculture sector was Rs 10,000 crore. The cumulative figure of the dues (from all power consumers) was Rs 20,000 crore in the entire state at that time,” the minister of state for energy said.
“The new government was formed in 2019 (of Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress) and we inherited the MSEDCL’s outstanding amount of Rs 40,000 crore, which was in the agriculture sector alone and the overall outstanding amount from all power consumers was Rs 60,000 crore. I do not want to go into political mud slinging, but figures cannot be ignored,” he said.
Tanpure even accused the Devendra Fadnavis government of not helping the power utility in terms of financial infusion.
“Other states, like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu gave Rs 50,000 crore, Rs 76,000 crore and Rs 30,420 crore, respectively, to their power utilities. Contrary to it, the Maharashtra government gave slightly more than Rs 4,000 crore during the 2014-19 period,” he alleged.
