Punjab Congress on Friday accused the SAD-BJP led State Government for its involvement in the ‘big scam’ by doling out crores of rupees to private power plants installed in the State. Making allegations, senior Congress leader Sunil Kumar Jakhar said that if voted to power, the Congress party would investigate the ‘scam’ in a threadbare manner and recover the ‘doled out’ money from such power plants.
Jakhar revealed that Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, in a written reply to his question in the assembly regarding what rate would be given to the new private power plants in the State, had stated that Punjab State Power Corporation limited (PSPCl) purchase power at the average rate of Rs3.38 per unit from national grid and from private power plants it was purchased at the rate of Rs2.89 per unit in 2011-12.
However, as per the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) Power Purchase Agreement with Talwandi Sabo Power Plant, the rate was fixed as Rs2.36 paise per unit and with Rajpura Power Plant, the rate was fixed at Rs2.89 per unit and with Goindwal Power plant it was Rs2.69 per unit, Jakhar claimed.
Terming this as “mother of all scams”, Jakhar alleged that in 2015-16, power purchased from Talwandi Sabo was at Rs6.66 per unit and from Rajpura, it was Rs4.05 per unit, which is much higher than the rate fixed in Power Purchase Agreement at the time of MoU.
For 2016-17, the rate to purchase power from Rajpura Power Plant was agreed at Rs4.25 per unit and from Talwandi Sabo, it was as high as Rs7.50 per unit, said Jakhar claiming that even both the power plants were imposed penalty of Rs950 crore for not making the plants operational by 2013 as per the MoU.
“Till date, not even a single penny of penalty was recovered from the plant. Rather, Rs1,000 crores were given to these private power plants for not purchasing the power last year and this year the same amount of more than doubled as Rs2,300 crore”, Jakhar said. He added that till September 30, 2015, the state Government had already given Rs6,000 crores to these plants to purchase power.
“Enquiries will be conducted into all plants, as these are being owned by Ambanis and Adanis. We will go to the bottom of this scam and stop this loot through investigation by a Sitting Judge of High Court,” Jakhar said.