The Telangana government would order a judicial inquiry into power purchase agreements with Chhattisgarh as well as construction of the Bhadradri and Yadadri thermal power plants by the previous BRS government, Chief Minister Revanth Reddy said on Thursday.
During a short discussion on the power sector in the Assembly, Revanth Reddy said his government is willing to set up an all party fact-finding committee to look into the 24-hour free power supply initiative of the BRS regime.
A White Paper on Telangana power sector, tabled by the Congress government in the House said the accumulated losses of Telangana discoms stood at Rs 62,461 crore as of March 31,2023 while the debt has mounted to Rs. 81,516 crore as on October 2023.
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“The state government is ordering a judicial probe into three issues of the Energy department. The negligence and corruption by the previous government in the agreement for power purchases of 1000 MW from Chhattisgarh will be probed,” he said.
Alleging that large scale corruption took place in the construction of Bhadradri and Yadadri thermal power plants, Reddy said the judicial probe would also be ordered into those two issues.
After the Deputy Chief Minister Bhatti Vikramarka tabled the White Paper, BRS legislator Jagadish Reddy who initiated the short discussion said the previous government increased the installed capacity of the power and created a lot of assets.
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Citing the White paper, he said the BRS government provided free power to farmers on an average of over 19 hours a day as against the Congress party’s allegations of eight to 10 hours.
He challenged the state government to order a probe into the issue. Intervening, Revanth Reddy said he is ordering a judicial probe.
There was an exchange of words between treasury and opposition benches on the free power to farmers issue.
According to the White paper, Rs 30,406 crore has been borrowed as working capital primarily to pay power charges of the power generators and despite that Rs. 28,673 cr of generation and transmission dues remain to be paid by discoms.
The difficulty faced by discoms in paying power purchase bills has been aggravated by the government defaulting on payment of the power bills of its own departments which have now accrued to Rs. 28,842 crore, including Rs 14,193 crore from irrigation Department.
“Despite the above legacy of financial imprudence, the Government is committed to providing quality and reliable power to the people of the state by overcoming the challenges faced by the sector with a responsible and transparent approach,” it said.
After its formation in 2014, Telangana had a contract capacity of 7778 MW which rose to 19475 MW as of December, 2023, the White Paper said.
