Chandrababu Forgets His Past Promises, Makes Baseless Allegations About Olectra Buses Now

The Telugu Desam Party’s (TDP) malicious political interests are spoiling the investment environment in Andhra Pradesh with their unrealistic accusations. With the success of the first phase of the Polavaram reverse tendering process, the TDP leaders are now trying to defend the interests of their close associates and started criticising every action of the ruling YSR Congress Party.

With a success of Polavaram reverse tendering, TDP leaders started accusing without a reality check and which are far from the truth. In that process, their criticism reached new heights on Megha Krishna Reddy and his companies. They came out once again with a Quid Pro Quo allegation card. The allegations are now on the electric bus purchases even before the fact that no purchase process has begun in this regard.

Baseless allegations

The main allegation is that all the main works will be awarded to the Megha Engineering for less of Rs. 500 Crores. Subsequently, this loss will be compensated in another way to the company by the Government is what they say. The TDP propaganda began with the allegation that the State Government to compensate for the loss in Polavaram Project, the State transport department will buy electric buses from Megha Engineering’s subsidiary company, Olectra Greentech Ltd., to the tune of Rs. 3280 Crore in a phased manner in the next five years. In reality, it is completely different. The TDP leaders forgot that exactly a year back N Chandrababu Naidu inaugurated the same Olectra Greentech bus in Amaravati capital region and in Tirumala ghat roads. He and his ministers travelled in the bus along with the company officials and promised that with introducing Electric busses in the capital regions, he will turn the city environmental friendly and pollution-free.

Chandrababu forgot his promise and actions in the past and now, are alleging the opposition with quid pro quo benefits.

The truth

Under the Fame-2 (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing (Hybrid) and Electric vehicles) policy, the Government of India will incentivise the purchase of 7090 Electric buses in the country with a plan outlay of Rs. 3545 Crore plan. The centre has allocated 10,000 Crore for electric mobility in the country. The State transport department had to buy electric buses, and the centre offered an incentive of Rs. 20,000 per Kilowatt. The Centre will also bear subsidies based on the operating costs of state transport companies. Many states have announced the policy on electric vehicles as part of this.

The purchase of electric buses will be based on global tenders. This process began in the tenure of Chandrababu. Now the new State government led by Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has decided to continue with the same policy of Chandrababu of buying electric buses from Megha Engineering’s subsidiary company.

How Rs. 1500 Crore will become 20,000 Crore?

The other baseless allegation is that the market capitalisation of Olectra Greentech will rise from Rs. 1500 Crore to Rs. 20,000 Crore in the next five years. Which would make Megha Krishna Reddy richer by Rs. 11,000 Crores from a mere Rs. 1000 Crore !

This is something which is unthinkable as per the stock market experts. On Friday, Olectra Greentech shares closed at Rs. 192.05. The current market capitalisation of the company is Rs. 1528.35 Crore. Megha Holdings has a share of 44.47 percent in the company as per National Stock Exchange data. Therefore, the value of Megha holdings is Rs. 679.66 Crores. To reach Rs. 20,000 Crore market capitalisation, Olectra Greentech share price must go up to at least Rs. 2520.

It may be recollected that Chandrababu Naidu established Heritage Foods in 1992 and came out with IPO in 1994. When he was in power, he literally forced all government establishments to purchase Heritage milk and other products. Even after these efforts and after 25 years of listing, Heritage Foods market capitalisation is still Rs. 1754.54. Do the TDP leaders have an explanation for this?

China's BYD Co Ltd.

China’s BYD is the world’s largest battery-making company. Tesla is another leading battery-making company and the main competitor for the BYD. Tesla batteries have failed many times and have exploded, but so far, there have been no instances where BYD batteries have blown or failed to work. The world’s richest man Warren Buffett backed BYD plans to invest in India. BYD plans to introduce electric vans in the country. A technology partnership agreement was signed when it was as Goldstone Infra and the takeover process by Megha was in line with market regulator SEBI stipulations.

Olectra Electric Buses

The Olectra Greentech buses are already operating in many states. It was first demonstrated in Amravati and a trial run was held in Tirumala Hill. Olectra buses travelled to the highest point from Manali in Himachal Pradesh to Rohtang Pass and entered the Limca Book of Records. Besides this, it is operating for Ayyapa Swami yatra devotees in Kerala. Olectra Greentech electric buses are already running successfully in Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Telangana states. Last week in Mumbai, BEST introduced nearly ten Olectra buses in city routes. In Pune, city services are running with higher capacity utilization. Olectra is operating 40 electric buses running from different parts of Hyderabad to the airport. Another interesting thing here is that Ashok Leyland has also recently launched the electric buses, but they are not able to reach higher altitudes.

Apart from these, all the states of the country, including Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, are calling for tenders for electric buses to utilize the concessions that the centre is giving. As a part of FAME 2, Andhra Pradesh can also soon call for tenders for electric buses. These tenders will be awarded after careful consideration of standards, production capacity, and technical aspects. By ignoring these facts, the TDP leaders are now accusing the present YSRCP Government of quid pro quo allegations.

Also Read: TDP Creating Unwanted Unrest In Palnadu For Political Mileage: YSRCP