After the high-voltage political drama in which the Indian National Congress (INC) accused the ruling Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) of favouring Adani Power, the spokesperson from Adani Group has discarded the charges, stating that the allegations made by Congress are “false and completely baseless.”
For the uninitiated, Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala had earlier made allegations that the BJP government in Gujarat had long been in league with power players like Adani, Essar, Tata and China Light Power to ‘squander’ ₹26,000 crore of the public exchequers.
However, through the recent statement made by their spokesperson, the Adani Group has denied charging “unimaginably high electricity tariffs” in the state of Gujarat and has strongly opposed Mr Surjewala’s accusations of the Gujarat government purchasing electricity from Adani Power at ₹24.67 per unit.
In the words of the Adani Group spokesperson, Adani Power has been “caught in a political crossfire.” According to him, the opposition has been attacking the conglomerate in a bid to defame and malign the image of the ruling party.
In its effort to spell out the chaotic scenario created by the INC around the power rates in Gujarat, Adani Group has also issued an official statement. They have stated that the company offers one of the lowest priced electricity supplies.
“Adani Power charged ₹2.71 per unit in 2013-14,₹2.64 in 2014-15, ₹2.57 in 2015-16 and ₹2.67 a unit in 2016-17. The average rate of power supply to Gujarat utility from the company has been ₹2.65 per unit (kwh) for the last four years,” the company spokesperson reinstated.
The power sector in the state of Gujarat has lately become a hot topic for debates nationwide. The losses accrued by some of the mentioned firms seem to have given birth to the idea behind the possibility of a scam. The power projects of business giants like Tata and Adani have already received a blow through the Supreme Court’s ruling on compensatory tariffs.
However, the story seems to have much more than it meets the eye. The Adani Group’s 4,620 MW thermal power project at Mundra, Gujarat, along with Tata, has been meeting the power requirements in Gujarat without compromising on national development or the needs of the state. The conglomerate might be getting dragged amidst a controversy without proper verification of facts, since Congress has not yet come up with any proofs regarding the claims its spokesperson had made.