UP to surrender costly power in election year!

Virendra Singh Rawat

Lucknow / Mar 7, 2021

Looking to provide succour to power consumers, the Uttar Pradesh government is mulling to surrender costly power supplied by various public and private sector energy companies.

According to sources, this could result in savings of nearly Rs 2,000 crore annually to the state, thus providing an elbow room to chief minister Yogi Adityanath to keep power tariffs low or even cut tariffs during the crucial election year.

While, UP’s power tariffs are among the highest in the country, the state will witness assembly polls in the early months of 2022.

Most of the ‘costly’ power purchase agreements (PPAs) for 1,600 megawatt (mw) pertain to the memorandum of understanding (MoU) route signed during the previous regimes with the state power utility, UP Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL).

The companies whose projects would be hit if the proposal to surrender costly power gets implemented include public sector energy major NTPC, and private power producers viz. Bajaj Group, M B Power, KSK Mahanadi Power and RKM Powergen.

Yesterday, UP Rajya Vidyut Upbhogta Parishad president Avadhesh Verma had submitted a report to state power minister Shrikant Sharma and demanded to surrender power that cost more than Rs 5 per unit since cheaper power was readily available from other sources, including energy exchanges.

The cost of power being purchased from these companies ranged from Rs 5.35 per unit to as high as Rs 6.05 per unit, he claimed.