Telangana’s Rythu Discom has 30.6 lakh connections. Then what?

The Congress government in Telangana has created a new utility for the state’s farm-power network, transferring 30,62,853 connections, 6,15,651 agricultural distribution transformers and 2,51,213 km of agricultural low-tension lines. The reorganisation is substantial. The explanation accompanying it is not.

Metro India reports that the transferred connections include 30,60,821 agricultural connections, 512 lift-irrigation connections, 105 HMWSSB connections, 1,145 CPWS/Mission Bhagiratha connections and 270 water connections with dedicated transformers. The transfer also includes 21,717 MVA of transformer capacity. The new company, Telangana Rythu Power Distribution Company Limited, has separately entered the regulatory process: TGERC records its application for a distribution licence under Section 14 of the Electricity Act, 2003.

The government says it is providing “24 hours uninterrupted, quality power to agriculture”. Its FY 2026–27 tariff documentation also records a ₹14,000 crore power-subsidy allocation and a commitment to extend subsidy support to the TGDISCOMs. But that is a statewide subsidy statement, not a published operating guarantee showing how much reaches TGRPDCL, when it reaches it, who answers for outages or what service standard farmers can enforce.

T. Harish Rao has called the transfer a conspiracy to discontinue free power and demanded withdrawal of G.O. 17 along with a written assurance. That allegation is not proven. The government’s problem is simpler and more embarrassing: it has built a new structure around 30 lakh farm connections without publicly explaining the safeguards that make its promise durable. This is administrative evasion dressed up as reorganisation. The Congress government has moved the wires first and left accountability somewhere in the file.