Thursday, Feb 27, 2003
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Andhra Pradesh
By Our Special Correspondent
The issue hogged the lion's share of the day's proceedings on Wednesday when the Congress stridently reiterated the demand for scrapping the PPAs allegedly favouring the private parties. Rejecting the demand, the Andhra Pradesh Government fielded four Ministers and some `vocal' members of the treasury to beat back the spirited opposition attack. The Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu, also intervened in the debate. The Telugu Desam member, G.Butchaiah Choudary, changed the course of the debate when he alleged that the most ardent antagonist of the PPAs, Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, himself had stakes in three power plants in the State and outside. He said Dr. Reddy who faulted the Government for fixing a high price for BPL, had no qualms of getting a much higher rate for his own units in Karnataka. Stumped by the development, Dr. Rajasekhara Reddy preferred the aggression mode, and said his family in fact promoted four plants. He challenged the Chief Minister to take action if there was any irregularity in the transactions or use his clout with the Centre for that purpose. He withdrew a remark made in this connection. What was wrong in his son setting up a power plant. Was not the Chief Minister's wife in business too? The Minister for Information, S. Chandramohan Reddy, claimed that the World Bank part-funded one of the plants set up by the family of Dr. Reddy, who accused the Chief Minister of being on the pay-roll of the World Bank. The Government justified the PPAs for the three plants and four up-coming gas-based projects on the ground that the State required more power projects to meet the growing needs and that the unit price, especially for the gas-based units, was the lowest in the country. Turning the tables, it said the earlier Congress Government had signed the PPAs, which were later revised downward by the TDP Government. This led to a saving of Rs. 25 crores yearly in case of GVK, Rs. 8 crores for Spectrum and Rs. 144 crores for BPL. There was no truth in the charge by Dr. Reddy that GVK and Spectrum were paid an extra of Rs. 200 crores yearly. The price for gas-based units was initially higher because they were based on the prohibitively costly naphtha. With the natural gas struck in Konaseema and the units getting gas linkage, unit cost and unit price had come down drastically with the latter being Rs. 1.96, lowest in the country. The debate soured with Dr. Rajasekhara Reddy daring Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, to probe his properties and asked if for his part, Mr. Naidu was ready. The CLP leader said his life was an open book in the last 25 years. Barring two years, he had never been in power. He inherited the properties of his father who was `killed by TDP men' and now he was enjoying the earning of his son. He demanded an inquiry into his properties by a sitting judge under the Commission of Inquiry Act. Mr. Naidu disputed the criticism that reforms led to escalation of prices, and said the Congress opposed new projects to the State, as it feared the Government would get a good name. It wanted to instigate the public, denigrating his achievements.
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