Minister for energy, Gottipati Ravi Kumar, on Saturday signed the orders giving 40,336 new agriculture connections from the electricity department. He took charge as the minister and signed the orders giving new connections.

The Minister also signed another order to provide solar power to all government offices across the state. The government offices were asked to shift to solar power in the place of conventional power. He said that the government offices in the state would convert to solar power in the next five years.

The Minister signed another order to give 3 kilowatts solar power to every house. This scheme is from the Central government under the Pradhan Mantri Surya Ghar programme. The Minister said that he would review the department and have clear knowledge of power consumption and generation in the state. He said he would strike a balance between demand and supply in the state.

The Minister further said that chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu was the first chief minister to introduce power reforms in the country. Andhra Pradesh had benefited a lot from the power reforms initiated by Chandrababu Naidu, he said. He asserted that Andhra Pradesh has the best power practices in the country.

Ravi Kumar said that the previous government had destroyed the power structure in the state in the last five years. The previous government also increased the power tariff by nine times in the last five years, he said. He asserted that the present government would not increase the power tariff in the next five years.