Power purchase from Chhattisgarh crippled finances of power utilities, say officials  

Telangana government faces financial strain due to costly power purchases from Chhattisgarh by previous administration.

The State government has expressed concern that the power purchases made by the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) government from Chhatisgarh have crippled the power utilities financially notwithstanding claims of BRS president and former chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao that power was purchased at ₹3.9 a unit.

Senior officials claimed that during the BRS regime, the State purchased 17,996 million units of power from Chhattisgarh and made payment of ₹7,719 crore. Coupled with this were the dues to the tune of ₹1,081 crore and another ₹1,362 crore on account of transmission and line charges. This was tantamount to purchasing power at ₹5.64 a unit and the State had to bear an additional cost of ₹3,110 crore despite the claims of the previous government.

The cost estimate was made at a time when the dispute over the pending dues with Chhattisgarh remained unresolved as Telangana had estimated the dues to be ₹1,081 crore while the power utilities of the neighbouring State peg them at ₹1,715 crore. The Chhattisgarh government went ahead and complained to the electricity appellate tribunal about the pending dues from Telangana.

It may be recalled that power supply was made available from Chhattisgarh in 2017 end and it had been insufficient in meeting the demand. With the supply not not crossing 1,000 MW at any point of time and not satisfactory, the Telangana distribution companies had to depend on purchases from open market resulting in additional expenditure of ₹2,083 crore between 2017 and 2022.

This was in addition to the cost incurred on account of booking corridor sufficient to supply 1,000 MW from Chhattisgarh with the PowerGrid Corporation of India Limited. The agreement ensured that the State had to pay the amount for the corridor irrespective of whether it had transferred power or not. The additional cost on this account were to the tune of ₹638 crore.

The previous government, according to officials, had incurred more charges by booking corridor for supply of another 1,000 MW, which was cancelled midway after ascertaining the power supply position from Chhattisgarh. As a result, the PGCIL had served notices to the Telangana Discoms seeking payment of ₹261 crore dues on this count as the previous government had signed the agreement without weighing the pros and cons.

Further, it was being pointed out that the Telangana Electricity Regulatory Commission had not given its go ahead for the purchase of power from Chhattisgarh, which in turn resulted in the demand to classify the payments made by the previous government to Chhattisgarh as “irregular”.