YSRCP denies any direct agreement with Adani on 7,000 MW power purchases from SECI

Amaravati: In light of the US prosecutors indicting Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani Group and six others of offering over Rs 1,700 crore in bribe to Indian government officials to enter into power purchase agreements (PPA) with Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) in August 2021 which includes supplying 7,000 MW power to Andhra Pradesh; YSRCP has denied any wrongdoing.

In a brief statement to media on Thursday, November 21, YSRCP’s central office has stated that there was no direct agreement between AP DISCOMs and any other entities including those belonging to the Adani group, and that the allegations made on the the YSRCP Government, were incorrect.

YSRCP stated that in order to mitigate the problem of exorbitant tariffs that were executed by the governments that were in power before it, which had rendered the cost of procuring power to as much as Rs 5.10 kWh; in 2020 the YSRCP government had proposed to install 10,000 MW of solar capacity in solar parks to be developed in Andhra Pradesh.

Noting that a tender was floated by APGECL in November 2020 for development of solar power capacity aggregating to 6,400 MW power, for which 24 bids were received with the tariffs in the range of Rs 2.49 to Rs 2.58 per kWh; YSRCP stated that due to legal issues and obstacles to the tenders, it couldn’t fructify.

However, the then YSRCP government subsequently received an offer from SECI to supply 7,000 MW of power at the lowest discovered tariff of Rs 2.49 per kWh for a 25 year period with 3,000 MW commencing in FY 2024-25, 3,000 MW commencing in FY 2025-26, and 1,000 MW commencing in FY 2026-27 with waiver of the ISTS charges.

“It is worth mentioning that, the power procurement of 7,000 MW was approved by Hon’ble APERC vide its order dated 11-Nov-2021. After the APERC approval was obtained, the Power Sale Agreement (PSA) was signed on 1-Dec-2021 between SECI and AP Discoms. This was after the CERC approval as well,” YSRCP stated.

Due to the waiver of ISTS charges for a period of 25 years, YSRCP claimed that the project was extremely favourable with respect to the interests of the state, and that procurement of power at such a cheaper rate would substantially benefit the state by saving of Rs 3,700 crore per year.

“As the agreement is for a period of 25 years, the total benefit to the State on account of this agreement would be immense,” stated the brief note from YSRCP’s central office in Tadepalli, Guntur.