The Congress on Wednesday alleged massive corruption in handing over operations of the four power distribution companies to the Tata Power.
PCC vice-president Pradip Majhi demanded that the Government cancel the contract within 30 days and threatened to take to the streets and move to court if the Government fails to do so.
He said the then Congress Government had constituted the Odisha Electricity Regulatory Commission (OERC) in 1995 under electricity supply reforms, and four distribution companies, Cesco, Wesco, Nesco and Southco were formed, which were later privatised in 1999 for efficiency.“But for some reason, the AES and Reliance Infra who were running those four distribution companies for 15 years left the State in 2014, after which the State Government took over and ran them under Gridco,” Majhi said.
He further said, “The fact that has been baffling us is that the four distribution companies whose annual turnover was approximately Rs 11,000 crore and whose cumulative assets are counted to be Rs 15,000 crores, have been sold to a private company (Tata Power) for only Rs 1,000 crore.“ I am asking for any inquiry into all this. This is a clear case of corruption.” He alleged that the OERC was bypassing norms and guidelines to favour a private entity in connivance with Government and Ministers,” said Majhi.
