Revanth hints at 500 gas cylinder and 200 units free power next month

Hyderabad: Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy asked officials to initiate the process of identifying beneficiaries for implementation of two more Congress guarantees from February. The guarantees include providing a gas cylinder for Rs 500 and extending free power to households up to 200 units. However, the implementation of the Mahalakshmi scheme to extend Rs 2,500 monthly financial assistance to women is likely to come into effect in March or April.While addressing the Congress party's booth level agents convention at LB Stadium, Revanth Reddy announced that the government will implement two more guarantees from next month without disclosing the names of those two guarantees. Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan had also announced in her Republic Day speech that the state government will implement two more guarantees from February but did not mention which schemes they were.Official sources said that Revanth Reddy will make an announcement after granting approval to both the guarantees in the cabinet meeting likely to be held next week.About 91.49 lakh people applied for gas cylinders and 90 lakh for free power during the Praja Palana programme held across the state from December 28 to January 6 to seek applications from people to avail six guarantees that were promised by the Congress in the run-up to the recent Assembly elections.Sources said that power utilities have already initiated the exercise of identifying households eligible for free power under the Gruha Jyothi guarantee scheme.There are around 1.20 crore domestic electricity connections in the state. It is learnt that 1.05 crore connections use less than 200 units power, implying that 87.9 per cent households would be eligible for free power scheme.The government is likely to incur an annual expenditure of `3,421 crore to implement the free power scheme.