Gujarat bought Rs 14,400 crore power from private players in two years

The state government bought electricity for over Rs14,000 crore from private power producers in the last two years. State energy minister Saurabh Patel said in a written reply in the House that the government had purchased power from five companies as per long term power purchase agreements signed with them.

The minister's reply showed that the government purchased 27,884 million units of electricity from Essar Power, CLP India, Adani Power, ACB (India), and Coastal Gujarat Power (Tata Power) in 2017, and 20,532 MUs in 2018. The sharp dip in power purchase was due to Adani and other private players stopping power supplying to government units for some time during 2018.

The government spent Rs7,975 crore for buying power from these companies in 2017, and Rs5,724 crore in 2018.

In addition, the government paid Rs388 crore and Rs382 crore to CLP India as a fixed cost in the two years.

"The money was paid as per the terms of the agreement," the minister's reply said.

The reply showed that the highest quantity of power was purchased from Tata Power in both the years, followed by Adani Power.

In another reply, the minister said that 23,853 MUs of electricity was purchased from central government units at an average of Rs2.81 per unit in 2017, and 26,314 MUs at an average of Rs3.02 per unit in 2018.

The minister also said that daily power demand in the state was 316.8 million units, of which state-owned power generation units contributed 85.4 MUs. He cited the high cost of generation as one of the reasons for lower procurement of electricity from state-owned units.