Cong MP asks Punjab govt why it didn’t renegotiate power purchase agreements

As Punjab reeled under an unprecedented power shortage, Congress MP Partap Singh Bajwa on Monday asked the Amarinder Singh government why it did not take steps till now to renegotiate power purchase agreements.

The Congress Government in Punjab had on Saturday that it would soon announce a legal strategy to counter the “ill-conceived” power purchase agreements (PPAs) signed during the SAD-BJP rule.

Bajwa cited that the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) allowed BSES, a power distribution company in Delhi, to renegotiate its PPA with the NTPC-Dadri power plant on July 1, 2021.

Similarly, the Uttar Pradesh government has also in the past successfully renegotiated signed PPAs, he claimed in a statement and asked, “Why is it that concrete steps have not been taken till date to do the same in Punjab?”

“There has been a valid precedent and yet after four years of governing the state, the PPAs signed by the SAD-BJP government are still enforced. These agreements have caused an irreparable financial burden to the state,” said Bajwa, a strident critic of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.

He pointed out that the same officers who negotiated these “anti-Punjab” PPAs on behalf of the previous government were still holding important positions in the present dispensation.