Power minister Jain raised no concerns over letter of comfort, says Shakuntala Gamlin

[related-post]

In case the Hon’ble Minister had been that convinced of what he is saying at this juncture, when things are already out in the open, he ought then to have taken recourse to writing the same note on 14.04.2015 itself, when the proposal for the LoC was placed before him. It is unfortunate that basic facts have been completely ignored and not taken cognizance of while preparing the said note,” the letter reads.

She has also said that the “comfort letter” was definitely not in the nature of “some kind of guarantee” that would have made the government of Delhi “liable to repay the loan if the companies defaulted at any time in the future”.

In her three-page letter, Gamlin has made a point-by-point rebuttal of the charges made against her by the AAP government and argued that rather than lobbying for power companies, she had ensured, while the AAP government was planning to provide power subsidies that would require them to pay the discoms, that both subsidy amounts pertaining to BYPL and BRPL would be adjusted.

The letter states: “ She on her own accord inserted a provision whereby BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd and BSES Yamuna Power Ltd (BYPL), the two discom in question, would be required to adjust the subsidy amount due to them from GNCTD against dues owed by them to state power PSUs, and in turn GNCTD would pay these dues back to the state power PSUs.”

The letter states that due to this clause inserted by her, the Delhi government was not required to pay the discoms the subsidy cost that was approximately Rs 1,000 crore, till the dues worth Rs 5,000 crore were paid by the discoms.