Congress media leak on Chhattisgarh PPA targetting KCR proved false

As for the allegations on cost variations leading to losses, experts point out that the variation was due to various charges including wheeling and transmission charges.

Hyderabad: An attempt by the Congress government to target Leader of Opposition and BRS president K Chandrashekhar Rao through planned media leaks alleging that there was no formal Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Chhattisgarh by the previous BRS government, and that the State Electricity Regulatory Commission had not ratified the PPA, is backfiring, with documentary evidence proving the ‘official leaks’ to be false.

The media leaks were engineered on Monday, through multiple sources in the media itself in the garb of “statements from officials”, with some sections of vernacular media stating that there was no formal PPA and that the ERC had not ratified the PPA, while some others, based on such leaks, wrote that the PPA had resulted in losses to the tune of Rs.6,000 crore to the State government.

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The narrative was presented so as to portray that even while the then BRS government had stated that it purchased power at Rs.3.90 per unit, it had actually spent Rs.5.64 per unit.

This was by taking “other expenses” into account, the reports ‘suggested’.

The leaks claimed that since the commencement of the agreement in late 2017, Telangana had purchased 17,996 million units of electricity and that the financial disbursements towards this purchase amounted to Rs.7,719 crore, with dues to Chhattisgarh reaching Rs.1,081 crore.

The ‘officials’ quoted in the leaks claimed that additional costs such as transmission line charges of Rs.1,362 crore pushed the effective per-unit cost up to Rs.5.64. On whether a formal PPA was signed or not, and whether the ERC had ratified the PPA or not, are very much evident in documents available from the ERC website (www.tserc.gov.in), which has a copy of the PPA that was signed on September 22, 2015.

In fact, Justice Narasimha Reddy himself said at a press conference that the PPA was sent to the Chhattisgarh ERC for approval, which confirms there was a PPA indeed. The TSERC website also has the order of the ERC consent to the PPA on March 31, 2017.

As for the allegations on cost variations leading to losses, experts point out that the variation was due to various charges including wheeling and transmission charges.

The State government has to pay wheeling charges to the Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (PGCIL) for the transmission of power from Chhattisgarh to Telangana, which is common to any State which purchases power from other States. Hence, the BRS government had done nothing wrong by paying wheeling charges.

Moreover, the BRS government cooperated with PGCIL for the early completion of Wardha-Dichpally line, booked a dedicated corridor to bring electricity to Telangana. In fact, the BRS government had sought exemption from State (within state) transmission charges in consultation with Chhattisgarh and made payments to PGCIL only for inter-State transmission.

This also reduced some burden on Telangana. According to sources, even the Congress government would have to pay around Rs.2,300 crore annually to the PGCIL in the form of wheeling charges for transmission of power bought from various power generation companies to Telangana.

The officials are claiming that since Chhattisgarh power supply was not so smooth, Telangana discoms had to buy power in the open market. Hence, from 2017 to 2022, the additional burden was Rs.2,083 crore. However, it is a common practice to purchase power from the open market with even power surplus States doing the same.

The Congress government in fact, was purchasing power from the open market on a daily basis.