“We have handed over a memorandum to Governor seeking that the work of constructing the SSTPS should be stopped immediately to save Rs 18,000 crore hard-earned money of tax payers,” state’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convenor Alok Agrawal told reporters here.
He alleged the Madhya Pradesh Power Generating Company Ltd (MPPGCL) shut down the functional first phase of SSTPS having an installed capacity of 1200 Mega Watt five months ago due to costly coal needed to run it.
The first phase of SSTPS was commissioned with a cost of Rs 8,000 crore in 2014, the AAP leader said.
Now, he said, the state government-run MPPGCL has hired Larsen and Toubro (L&T) to set up the second phase of SSTPS to generate 1320 MW power in 2018.
The state government is investing Rs 18,000 crore to commission the second phase of SSTPS, Agrawal said, claiming such a whopping amount of money of tax payers will go down the drain as the project is going to meet the SSTPS first phase’s fate due to costly coal.
The AAP leader also alleged that despite objections of Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL), the project of setting up the second phase was given to L&T at a high rate. BHEL was also one of the bidders for the task, he added.
“We also asked the Governor to order a high level probe into the work awarded to L&T,” added Agrawal.
PTI