Ignoring the objections from the Centre and court litigations from power producers, YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is hell bent on unearthing massive corruption involved in the signing of power purchase agreements (PPAs) signed during the regime of Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu.
According to YSRC sources, Jagan has concrete evidences to prove that a lot of nepotism and corruption were involved in signing the PPAs for renewable energy during the previous TD regime.
According to finance minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy, around 31 PPAs were signed just before the closure of the APERC control period in February 2017 and the companies assured that power generation would begin within 45 days.
“The plants were set up even before the PPAs were signed and that too at higher rates when the prevailing rates in the market in the other states were at that time were lower. This is nothing but nepotism and corruption,” Reddy said in a media interview.
Rajendranath said the previous government had gone ahead with the PPAs even after the power distribution companies (Discoms) had red-flagged them.
“In 2017, knowing very well that renewable energy is expensive and that the cost of renewable energy was coming down rapidly as turbines were getting better and solar cell costs were coming down, PPAs with 21 companies for 800 MW were entered into urgently even after the control period of APERC was over,” he said.
He said in March 2017 approached the APERC pointing that the PPAs were signed at higher rates and urged that they be cancelled.
“We are reiterating what the discoms said in March 2017 that they cannot afford such high PPAs,” he said.
