less than a month after departure of Rana Gurjit Singh as Punjab’s Power Minister, the State Congress president and Gurdaspur MP Sunil Jakhar has challenged his clean chit given to the erstwhile Badal Government in the power purchase agreement (PPA) signed with a private company for setting up Talwandi Sabo thermal plant.
Maintaining that he stood by his allegations, Jakhar has shot off a communiqué to the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh demanding a thorough probe into Talwandi Sabo's private thermal plant.
“I have all along been pointing at the incorrect ways in which the bids were made for the Talwandi Sabo plant. The company which made the bid, actually could not qualify for the same. The financial competence of the Company, which made the bid for Talwandi Sabo plant, was not as much was requirement,” said Jakhar.
The former Power Minister Rana Gurjit Singh had virtually given a clean chit to the previous SAD-BJP Government saying that no flaws were found in the PPAs signed with private players during the SAD-BJP regime on the basis of which these pacts could be scrapped.
Annulling the PPAs with the private players for setting up power plants after coming to power was one of the pre-poll promises of the Congress party.
Jakhar had, since SAD-BJP government, alleging that the private players benefited to the tune of thousands of crores as the conditions in the PPAs were tweaked by the then government in their favour.
The senior Congress leader had even cited provisions of procedure laid down by the Union Power Ministry in standard bid document for tariff-based bidding process for procurement of power on long term basis claiming that PPA, signed by the Sterlite Energy limited for the Talwandi Sabo power plant with Punjab, clearly violated the stipulated conditions.
“The company operating the Talwandi Sabo thermal plant created a new company to become a successful bidder for the plant. It was done to hide the poor financial resources of the old company. The new company, by showing its strong financial resources, succeeded in its bid,” said Jakhar.
Jakahr said that he wanted a thorough investigation into the matter without any bias. “I still stuck to all my allegations and statements. If the company has made the bid in a dishonest way, the power rates should be revised by making required changes in the agreement so that the common people of Punjab could get some benefit,” he demanded.