Chief Minister VD Satheesan firmly defended the government's power procurement policy during a press briefing following the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. He stated that purchasing electricity at lower rates was a deliberate choice to safeguard the state from heavy financial burdens.
He explained that the Electricity Department evaluated two distinct proposals to meet the state's power demand. The first involved purchasing power from the Himachal Pradesh government through PTC India Limited at a steep rate of Rs 14.50 per unit.
The second option was securing power through an open-market private platform under General Network Access (GNA) at much lower rates of Rs 8.63 and Rs 8.90 per unit.
“Procurement through the General Network Access platform at lower unit rates was far more economical than buying power from Himachal Pradesh at Rs 14.50 per unit, which would have imposed an additional Rs 2,232 crore liability on the state treasury,” said the Chief Minister.
Under the GNA deal, even when exceeding regulatory thresholds and incurring a surcharge of Rs 2.06 per unit, the cost remained far cheaper than Himachal's additional burden of Rs 8.05 per unit. Furthermore, during peak hours from 6 PM to midnight, the GNA arrangement delivers 453 MW of power compared to just 353 MW offered by Himachal Pradesh, said Satheesan.
Refuting allegations of a Rs 722 crore loss raised by the opposition, Satheesan noted that past administrations similarly relied heavily on private suppliers—including GNA, Jindal, and Adani—while procuring minimal supply from NTPC.
He added that the current government also secured 150 MW from the Nuclear Power Corporation of India at Rs 4.65 per unit and restored a damaged 150 MW local generator within four days to stabilise supply.
Regarding the transfer of KSEB Chairman M. G. Rajamanickam, Satheesan dismissed any connection to the power deal, describing it as part of a routine administrative reshuffle across multiple departments involving several senior officers.
Even though transferring officers remain the prerogative of the government, he said that the transfers were in accordance with standard procedure.
He emphasised that the transfer had no connection to the power purchase decisions made by the government.