NEW DELHI: Congress on Monday hit out at the government accusing it of “benefitting” its “friends” by making the blending of imported coal mandatory for domestic power producers.
Speaking to media outside Parliament, Congress spokesperson Gourav Vallabh alleged that the BJP government at the centre devised this model to benefit “friends” and this will lead to a higher cost of power that will hurt the common people.
He said, “Three Step Friend-Benefit Model. In step one, the government mandates all coal-based power generators to import at least 10 per cent of their coal requirement for blending purposes.”
He further said that in step two, award Rs 4,035 crore (2.416 million tonnes at Rs 16,700 per tonne) contract to Adani Enterprise Limited for this imported coal.
In step three, coal-based power generators will have to buy the imported coal at nearly Rs 20,000 per tonne.
“This is 7-10 times more than the usual costs, which are Rs 1,700 to 2,000 per tonne price of domestic coal,” the Congress leader said.
Vallabh said this will lead to power costs going up for domestic and industrial consumption, hurting commoners the most.
“This is a three-pronged strategy for institutionalising the friend-benefit policy,” Vallabh alleged.
Vallabh also hit out at the Centre over the GST rate hike.
The decision to hike GST on some items was taken in the recently held 47th GST Council meeting in Chandigarh.
Vallabh said that due to the government’s decision the common people, who are already facing a lot of hardship due to inflation, will have to bear the pain.