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Khurana sees red in power privatisation

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI SEPT. 19. Undeterred by the defamation suit filed against him by the Delhi Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, the Delhi BJP president, Madan Lal Khurana, today alleged a Rs. 200-crore scam in the privatisation of power last year. Demanding a CBI probe into the whole affair, Mr. Khurana claimed that the public exchequer was defrauded of a huge sum of money and the private distribution companies were allowed wrongful gains by tinkering with the provisions of the Transfer Scheme without approval of Delhi's Lieutenant-Governor, Vijai Kapoor.

Addressing a press conference, Mr. Khurana said a huge fraud had been committed on the people of Delhi. He said he wondered how much money had changed hands behind the scenes in allowing such unlawful undue benefits to the private companies. "I have written to the Lieutenant-Governor seeking a proper CBI probe into the whole affair so that the truth could be brought out and the corrupt Congress Government is exposed before the people. The documents that I have produced cannot be refuted and it proves that a lot of wrong favours were shown for certain consideration by the Sheila Dikshit Government," he remarked.

Mr. Khurana pointed out that under the Transfer Scheme, opening balance-sheets were prepared for the three private distribution companies. The value of the stores and spares of each distribution company was provisionally taken at Rs. 5 crores. It was decided that the value of stores and spares should be adjusted to reflect the actual book value as on the date of transfer. In case the actual book value of these items was more than the value mentioned in the balance-sheet, there shall be a corresponding increase in the current liability payable to the holding company. A decrease in the value of such items would be followed by a corresponding decrease in the current liability. The discoms shall undertake to repay the current liability payable to holding company mentioned in this part within one year or 12 equal instalments from the second month onwards from the date of transfer, the rules further provided.

Following this, he said, Delhi Vidyut Board was unbundled and distribution of power privatised. However, just four days before the private companies took over, the Sheila Dikshit Government prepared another document, Shared Facility Agreement, without approval of the Lieutenant-Governor. This virtually nullified the provisions made in the Transfer Scheme relating to stores. This made the discoms virtually the valuers of the Government stores transferred to them. Even after privatisation, the private companies continued to get the raw material but the Government made payment. The capital works under progress are to be completed by Transco and handed over the companies free of cost. This new document prepared by the Congress Government changed everything and caused huge loss to public exchequer. He alleged that Transco got valued some of the central stores at Rs. 80 crores, leaving out a number of big items. If all the items and stores had been assessed the value would have come to around Rs. 200 crores. "The matter needs to be probed why till date the balance sheets have not been modified to reflect the true value of stores and why no efforts have been made to recover the additional cost of the stores."

"I charge the Sheila Dikshit Government with colluding with private companies and preparing wrong and illegal documents without the approval of the Lieutenant-Governor. This has caused a huge loss to the exchequer and nothing short of a CBI probe would satisfy us," he remarked.

Mr. Khurana also used the opportunity to take a dig at the media, charging that it was not properly highlighting the issues raised by him and accused a section of bias and favouritism.

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