Bajwa smells scam in power purchase pacts with pvt firms
Monday, 08/02/2016
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CHANDIGARH: Alleging that all units of Lehra Mohabbat thermal plant were closed down to facilitate purchasing costly power from private sector plants, former Punjab Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa smells rat in the signing of the power purchase agreements with the private companies.
He pointed out that the power produced by the public sector thermal plants was cheaper but the Punjab Power Corporation was bound to purchase specific units of power from the private sector as per the power-purchase agreements.
He accused deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal of forcing the state power utility to pay ` 2,700 crore yearly to private thermal plants “even if the government didn’t purchase a unit”. “This is shocking that the state government is splurging only to realise the ‘power surplus state’ dream of Sukhbir,” Bajwa said.
Alleging a big scam, he said power generation in public sector plants would be down to about 9,500 million units in 2015-16 as compared to 16,500 million units in 2012-13. He demanded that all the power purchase agreements signed with private companies, along with the generation capacity of the public sector plants and per unit cost of generation, must be made public.