Committed to expose irregularities in power sector, says Telangana CM

Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy on Monday said that his government is committed to bringing out the "irregularities" in the power sector during BRS rule.

He told the Assembly that the judicial probe already ordered into the irregularities in power purchase agreements with Chhattisgarh and the construction of Bhadradri and Yadadri thermal power plants would bring out the facts including the quantum of public money allegedly swindled during the 10-year rule of Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS).

The Assembly witnessed a heated debate over the alleged irregularities after BRS member and former Energy Minister G. Jagadishwar Reddy alleged that the Chief Minister tried to mislead the house on smart meters for farm connections. He claimed that the BRS government had refused to fix meters to agriculture connections.

The Chief Minister slammed BRS leaders for approaching the courts to scrap the Judicial Commission and reminded them that the Commission was set up after they challenged the government to order the probe.

He told the house that the Supreme Court has not scrapped the Commission but only asked the government to appoint a new Chairman in place of Justice L. Narasimha Reddy (retd) and the state government has given its consent for the same.

Alleging that the BRS is distorting even the orders of the Supreme Court, he announced that the new Chairman would be appointed soon.

He claimed that BRS President and former Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) approached the court to scrap the Judicial Commission while citing the approach of the Chairman. Revanth Reddy said the Supreme Court rejected the arguments of KCR saying it is not possible to scrap the Commission. The court stated that if there are objections, the Chairman may be replaced.

The Chief Minister said the Bhadradri thermal power project was started at an estimated cost of Rs 7,290 crore in 2015 with the target of completing it in 2017 but it was completed in 2022 with an inflated cost of Rs 10,515 crore. It would cost Rs 9.73 crore to generate one MW of power in the Bhadradri plant, he said.

The Yadadri project was launched with an estimated cost of Rs 25,000 crore with the target of completing it by 2020 but the project has not yet been completed. The cost of the project has gone up to Rs 34,548 crore and in the future, it may jump to Rs 40,000 crore.

"The cost was escalated by Rs 10,000 crore and in whose pockets has this money gone," he asked. He said while the generation of a MWt of power by NTPC costs Rs.7.38 crore, the same will cost Rs 8.64 crore at the Yadadri project. He claimed that civil work contracts in bulk were given to BHEL and from BHEL, the works were awarded to their benamis, relatives and those close to BRS leaders.

There was fraud of thousands of crores, the CM said, adding that due to irregularities by the BRS government, 16 officials had to face the probe.

The works which should have been completed in two years were continuing for eight years, he added.

"They (the BRS) demanded a probe into power purchase agreements with Chhattisgarh and Yadadri and Bhadradri thermal power projects. We constituted the Commission on their demand but when the Commission asked them to appear and give details, they made allegations against the Commission," he said. Instead of appearing before the Commission to submit their arguments, they approached the court to scrap the Commission, he said.

He pointed out that at the time of the bifurcation of united Andhra Pradesh, then Union Minister S. Jaipal Reddy convinced the Centre to divide energy assets on the basis of requirements and not on the basis of the location of power plants. Telangana got 53.46 per cent of the energy while Andhra Pradesh was given the remaining 46.54 per cent. Thus it was ensured that Telangana does not plunge into darkness, he added.