Gujarat govt paid Rs 16,900 cr in two years to Adani, Tata firms to buy electricity

The Gujarat government has paid Rs 16,900 crore to Adani Power and Tata Power for purchasing electricity during the last two years, the state Assembly was informed on Monday.

As per the data tabled by Energy Minister Kanubhai Desai during Question Hour, the state government paid Rs 8,160 crore to Adani Power Mundra Ltd while Rs 8,784 was paid to Coastal Gujarat Power Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Power, in 2021 and 2022.

While responding to a set of questions raised by Congress MLAs about the purchase of electricity from these private players, Desai said the state government paid Rs 2,760 crore to Adani Power in 2021 to buy 5,589 million units while Rs 5,400 crore was paid to the firm in 2022 for nearly 6,000 million units.

In 2021, the state government paid Rs 2,751 crore to Tata Power to buy 7,315 million units, while the cost came to Rs 6,033 crore for 10,446 million units in 2022.

The data suggested per unit cost of Rs 2.83 paid to Adani in January 2021 went up to Rs 8.83 per unit in December 2022 (provisional). Similarly, Tata Power charged Rs 4.92 per unit from the government in 2022 against Rs 1.80 in January 2021.

Desai said the per unit cost of electricity went up after 2018 due to "exponential rise" in the price of imported coal, which had forced such power generators to shut their plants in Gujarat.

To ensure people of Gujarat get uninterrupted power, the state government had signed new supplementary agreements with Adani to pay as per the actual cost of fuel, said Desai.

Again in 2021, when gas and imported coal prices saw significant rise, the state government, to ensure uninterrupted power supply, bought electricity from these firms under "special temporary arrangement" as approved by the Centre and state government, Desai said in the Assembly.