Scrap PPA with Chhattisgarh: Congress to govt

​Hyderabad: Deputy floor leader of Congress in Legislative Council Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy on Tuesday demanded the government to cancel the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Chhattisgarh if it wants to hike the power purchase price. 

Addressing the media, he said that the Power Generation Corporation of Chhattisgarh has filed a petition before its Electricity Regulatory Commission for hiking the power price being produced by its thermal power stations and supplied to Telangana. 

He said that the Genco of Chhattisgarh has claimed that generation cost of its thermal power stations(TPS) has gone up to Rs 9 crore per Megawatt and this was abnormally high in any aspect. The power production cost of any TPS in the country has been around Rs 5 crore per MW. 

The State government has made an agreement with Chhattisgarh government to purchase power at the cost of Rs 3.90 per unit. However, with the latest claim of the Chhattisgarh this price may rise steeply. Accepting that price would cause heavy loss to Telangana. 

Thermal power is available for Rs 2.20 per unit in the power market and State government could buy it in emergencies.  Sudhakar Reddy said that the government should pay Rs 20 lakh as compensation to the families of the people who died due to electrocution in Khammam and other districts. 

He said that in Raghunathapalem of Khammam district a farmer and his son died due to electrocution. The deputy floor leader of Congress in Council said that government should see that the proposed insurance scheme is available to all the farmers. Due to the errors in the cleansing of land records 3 lakh farmers were deprived of the benefit of the programme. 

He also demanded the Chief Minister to withdraw the comments which have likened the Congress with Rakshasas (devils). He said that being a Chief Minister it was unbecoming to make such rude comments which they were against the culture of Telangana .