NEW DELHI: All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) today slammed the Teesta-III power project as a failed example of public-private partnership since it is selling electricity at a discounted rate in open market, as against the contracted rate.The Federation claimed that power produced from Teesta- III power plant is being sold at a rate below Rs 3 per unit in open market after Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh refused to buy electricity from it at Rs 6 per unit-- which is the contracted rate. "Teesta-III -- a failed example of Public Private Partnership. Now, during high flow period up to September, the project is unable to generate beyond 700 MW due to transmission constraints with a continuous loss of 12 Million Units per day valued at Rs 3.6 crore.V K Gupta, spokesperson of AIPEF, said that the organisation has written to power ministry to expedite the work of completion of transmission system for full utilization of water for power generation. About 70 per cent of the project cost was funded by loans extended by Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) and a consortium of public sector banks.In November 2014, when the project was on the verge of collapse, Government of India intervened to revive the project by increasing equity shareholding of the Sikkim government from 26 to 51 per cent.The construction of connected transmission lines of the project was also given to the same project developer -- Teesta Urja Ltd subsidiary. While the construction of the project was delayed for over five years, the construction of the transmission lines was delayed even more and only 25 per cent of it could be completed.

Source: Economic Times June 25, 2017 07:30 UTC