VIJAYAWADA: Asserting that the Power Sale Agreement for solar power was between Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), a Central Government entity, the State Government, and Discoms, former Chief Minister and YSRCP president YS Jagan Mohan Reddy said no third parties were involved in the deal.
Speaking to mediapersons on Thursday, Jagan dismissed the allegations of corruption being levelled against him, as hearsay, and announced that he is going to file a Rs 100 crore defamation suit against two vernacular newspapers for distorting facts, and spreading lies if they do not publish an open apology within 48 hours. He reacted for the first time after the row surfaced.
“I saved more than Rs 1 lakh crore with the SECI deal, which was a government-to-government agreement. Besides getting solar power for just Rs 2.49 per unit, the Centre waived Inter State Transmission Charges, which are approximately Rs 2 per unit, as a special incentive,” he explained.
Jagan said in a way he created wealth for the State, but instead of being praised, he is receiving brickbats.
When asked about his meeting with Gautam Adani, Jagan said an industrialist meeting a Chief Minister is nothing unusual, and Adani Group has various interests in the State, and rubbished the reports that his name figured in the indictment report.
Elaborating on the deal, the former Chief Minister said SECI had offered to supply 9,000 MW of power to the State at Rs 2.49 per unit, and waive Inter State Transmission Charges, and 3,000 MW would be supplied in September 2024.
“This is the cheapest price the State has ever had for power, and we accepted it after following the due procedures, including getting the consent from the AP Electricity Regulatory Commission. We received the letter from SECI on September 15, 2021, which was discussed in the Cabinet meeting, and sent to an expert committee, which gave its suggestions after 40 days of study, and then the matter was finalised in the Cabinet meeting in December. SECI had also offered power to other States like Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Tamil Nadu, but the price was higher than Rs 2.49 per unit, which was offered to us,” Jagan said.
Mocking Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s claim of creating wealth, Jagan pointed out that the average price of solar power during the previous TDP government was Rs 5.90 per unit, which if realised would have burdened the State.
Responding to the TDP-led NDA government’s emphasis on invoking the Preventive Detention (PD) Act against those posting or forwarding ‘social media posts’, the YSRC chief said, “This bulldozing clearly shows the plight of democracy in Andhra Pradesh now.”