Hold officials behind power pacts accountable, says Navjot Singh Sidhu

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 5

Flagging the issue of bureaucratic control over departments, Congress leaders Navjot Singh Sidhu and Partap Singh Bajwa today sought the accountability of officials who negotiated the power purchase agreements (PPAs) on behalf of the previous SAD-BJP government.

In a veiled attack on the Chief Minister, the former Cabinet Minister, in another tweet, said: “A white paper on PPAs must be brought in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha to make Badals and other authors of these corrupt agreements accountable to people... I have been demanding this since 2017, but the bureaucratic control of departments corners people-elected ministers to mere showpieces.”

Congress Rajya Sabha MP Partap Bajwa, too, sought to know the concrete steps taken to renegotiate the PPAs during four and a half years of governance. “The PPAs signed by the SAD-BJP government are still enforced. These agreements have caused irreparable financial burden on the state. The same officials who negotiated these anti-Punjab PPAs on behalf of the previous government are still holding important positions in the present dispensation. It must be mentioned here that these individuals can create a roadblock for any long-term change to the status quo,” he said.

Bajwa pointed towards an order of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) allowing BSES, a power distribution company in Delhi, to renegotiate its PPA with the NTPC-Dadri power plant on July 1. Similarly, the Government of Uttar Pradesh has also in the past successfully renegotiated signed PPAs.

MP Manish Tewari said review or cancellation of the PPAs was a complex legal issue. “It must be done. Punjab really requires transition to green energy. Every agricultural water resource must be solar powered.”