SC rejects 1010 cr claim by Reliance’s Sasan power plant; consumers to benefit

Special Correspondent

NewsBits.in

Bhopal: In an order that would benefit power consumers ultimately, the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a dues claim by Reliance’s Sasan Ultra Mega Power Plant (UMPP) on different procurers including the MP Power Management Company worth Rs 1010 crores.

The 4000 MW UMPP of Reliance Power Ltd. is situated in Singrauli district of Madhya Pradesh.

The order means that the power consumers in MP and elsewhere would be saved from paying higher power tariffs, additional advocate general of MP, Purushaindra Kaurav has said.

The Sasan UMPP had claimed dues of Rs 1010 crores on MP Power Management Company (MPMCC) and power procurers from other states by stating that its first unit of 660 MW started operating commercially on March 31, 2013.

However, the procurers contested the claim stating that the March 31 date could not be considered as commercial operating date (COD) as the plant had not operated for the required 72 hours at 95% of contracted capacity. Rather the plant had started commercially operating on August 16, 2013.

The matter was first taken to the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) by Western Regional Load Despatch Centre (WRLDC) and the commission allowed the stand of the centre.

However, Reliance Power Ltd. filed an appeal with Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL) and got the CERC order reversed.

This APTEL order was challenged in the Supreme Court by the MP Power Management Company and the All India Engineers Association.

The matter was heard in detail last week with arguments from both sides. On Thursday, the division bench of Justices Kurian Jospeh and Rohinton Nariman ruled in favour of MP Power Management Company (MPPMC) and All India Engineers Association.

Additional advocate general of MP Purushaindra Kaurav, who represented the MPMCC in Supreme Court , told NewsBits.in that if the power procurers (including MPPMC) had to pay the dues of Rs 1010 to Reliance, the financial burden might have finally been passed on to power consumers in MP and elsewhere.

“So the Supreme Court order effectively means that the consumers are saved of the additional power costs,” the additional AG said.

Kaurav also said that it was contended in court that the Reliance Power Ltd., was claiming COD of March 31 also so that it could bypass the lower first year power purchase costs and directly claim the second year tariff. The SC however, upturned its plea.