Power panel slaps notices on KCR

Hyderabad: Former Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has been served notices by Justice L Narasimha Reddy Commission as part of the probe into the alleged irregularities in the PPAs (Power Purchasing Agreements) entered with the Chhattisgarh government in 2015. The Commission declined KCR’s plea to extend time till July 30 to respond to the notices and asked him to give explanation before June 15.

The Commission was investigating alleged corruption in the PPAs entered by the then BRS government with Chhattisgarh and also the construction of Bhadradri and Yadadri thermal power projects.

The Commission has served notices to 25 persons, including KCR, former Transco and Genco CMD D Prabhakar Rao and former Energy Secretaries Suresh Chanda and Arvind Kumar and some Transco Directors who were part of the official team in finalising the deal with Chhattisgarh government for the supply of power to Telangana.

A majority of the officials have already appeared before the Commission and their statements were recorded. The former CM sought some more time to appear before the commission and also gave a written reply to the questions asked on PPAs. The Commission was suspecting irregularities might have taken place in the PPAs as the government did not invite power suppliers through competitive bidding and instead finalised the agreement unilaterally without taking into consideration the power price in the open market during that period.

The Commission said that the previous government entered into PPAs against the power policy framed by the Union government. The then Energy Secretary Arvind Kumar wrote a letter to the Energy Regulatory Commission on the PPAs but the government did not take it seriously and transferred the official from Energy wing for going against the government decisions. Another former Secretary SK Joshi also appeared before the commission and clarified the doubts raised by the Commission.

Justice Narasimha Reddy said that the main focus of the Commission was to probe the PPAs and the construction of two thermal power projects. He sought the details of the permission given to construct sub-critical thermal projects instead of super-critical projects.