Chandigarh, March 4, 2020 (Yes Punjab News)
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), furthering its agitation on the issue of expensive electricity in the state, on Wednesday issued a 17-page white paper (Vision document) during the current budget session of Punjab Vidhan Sabha unfolding the factual position of the government, the power department and their vested interests in private power companies.
On the last day of the Budget Session on Wednesday, the AAP leaders blamed Capt Amarinder Singh and Sukhbir Singh Badal for offering protective patronage to the power mafia, which had rendered the state bankrupt and the people of Punjab groaning under the heat of power shocks.
The AAP MLAs shouted slogans and staged a walkout under the leadership of LoP Harpal Singh Cheema when denied permission to move the ‘stop work’ motion on the floor of the House.
Meanwhile, Aman Arora hoisting a ‘White Paper’ and a ‘Vision document’ on the expensive electricity in the state on the floor of the House, said the Capt Amarinder Singh government could not bring out a white paper on the power issue, the Aam Aadmi Party had brought the one of its own with a road map to tame the power mafia efficaciously.
Later releasing the ‘white paper’ to the media in the press gallery, Aman Arora claimed that if the Punjab government revisited and reviewed the deadly power purchase agreement (PPAs), with private power companies, the power per unit of electricity could be made available to each and every category of consumers in the state at per Rs 4 per unit.
Others who were present on the occasion were, besides, LoP Harpal Singh Cheema, Kultar Singh Sandhwan, Meet Hayer, Jai Krishan Singh Rouri, party Spokesmen Sangha, Neel Garg, Gobinder Mittal, Dinesh Chadha and State Media Head Manjit Singh Sidhu.
Arora said that the Capt. Amarinder Singh government had introduced the private power companies in Punjab during its last tenure in 2006, which gained ground during the 10-year regime of the BJP-SAD which extended it further by inking expensive pacts with private power companies.
He claimed that a fixed amount of Rs. 3513 crores had to be coughed off annually by the state government to the thermal plans at Rajpura, Talwandi Sabo and Goindwal Sahib for the next 25 years under the pacts even if they did not produce a single unit of electricity, saying that it would come to Rs 87825 crore the state would be paying to these companies.
Aman Arora said that if the AAP succeeds in forming the government in 2022, it would get the accounts reviewed and have the power purchase agreement revoked to stop the alleged open ‘loot’ of the state exchequer.
