Row over power purchase deal: electricity employees’ forum poses 11 questions to Keralam Chief Minister

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Keralam Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan

The Left-backed Electricity Employees Federation of India (EEFI) has challenged Keralam Chief Minister V.D. Satheesan to publish the files related to the power purchase deal with GNA Energy OTC. The EEFI leaders said this was necessary since Mr. Satheesan claims that the then KSEB chairman and managing director M.G. Rajamanickam had not objected to the deal.

M.G. Suresh Kumar, convener, Research and Development, EEFI, has posed 11 questions to the Chief Minister following the latter’s post-Cabinet press briefing where he claimed that the KSEB had not objected to purchasing power from GNA and that the government had opted for the procurement to avert an additional financial liability of ₹2,200 crore.

The EEFI has urged Mr. Satheesan to explain the basis of his claim that GNA would provide more peak-time electricity compared to the offer from the Himachal Pradesh government. The Chief Minister should also explain why he himself has come forward to defend the offer made by GNA at a time when the KSEB is opposing the deal, when it does not have the approval of the electricity regulatory commission, and there is a lack of clarity on the actual power generator involved in the purchase deal. GNA OTC was only a digital over-the-counter (OTC) trading platform. The government should disclose the identity of power generator involved in the deal, Mr. Suresh Kumar said.

The remaining questions pertained to the government’s reported decision to invoke Section 108 of the Electricity Act to go ahead with the deal, the need to push through with the deal when the State is not facing a crisis at the moment, and the calculations on which the Chief Minister based his claim that the government averted a ₹2,200-crore additional liability by opting for GNA’s offer over that of Himachal Pradesh.

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