THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief Minister VD Satheesan on Wednesday defended the government’s power procurement policy, stating that purchasing electricity at lower rates was a deliberate choice to safeguard the state from heavy financial burden.
Briefing the press after a cabinet meeting, he explained that the government evaluated two distinct proposals to meet the state’s power demand. The first involved purchasing power from Himachal Pradesh through PTC India Limited at Rs 14.50 per unit. The second 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 GNA platform was far more economical than buying from Himachal, which would have imposed an additional Rs 2,232 crore liability on the treasury,” he said.
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. During peak hours, from 6 pm to midnight, the GNA arrangement delivers 453 MW of power compared to just 353 MW offered by Himachal, he said.
Refuting the opposition allegation of a Rs 722-crore loss, Satheesan noted that past administrations similarly relied heavily on private suppliers —including GNA, Jindal and Adani—even while procuring a minimal supply from the National Thermal Power Corporation. He said the present government also secured 150 MW from 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.
On the transfer of KSEB chairman MG Rajamanickam, Satheesan described it as part of a routine administrative reshuffle involving several senior officers. Though transferring officers remain the prerogative of the government, he said the transfers were in accordance with standard procedure.