The Hindu : New Delhi News : Govt. fails to come clear on power privatisation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 05, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Govt. fails to come clear on power privatisation

By Sujay Mehdudia

NEW DELHI, JAN. 4. Although the Delhi Power Minister, Haroon Yusuf, made a forceful "political rebuttal" of the charges made by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and his own party members with regard to privatisation of power during the winter session of the Delhi Assembly, he failed to specifically refute the allegations of wrongdoing, failure to recover arrears from private discoms and imposition of misuse charges by these companies on power connections within the `Lal Dora' area in rural Delhi.

There is no denying that the power situation has improved after privatisation of the Delhi Vidyut Board, but the "indifferent attitude" of the private companies towards consumers and elected representatives is a cause for worry. The Power Minister had no satisfactory answer to the fact that Delhi Government had at the time of privatisation of power sector in July 2002 earmarked Rs. 3,450 crores to be disbursed to the private distribution companies over a period five years. However, just after two and half years into privatisation, the Government has already given Rs. 3,566 crores to these companies raising questions on who would foot the heavy subsidy bill for the next two and half years. There was also no answer to the query why Rs.100-crore worth of land had been given to a private distribution company at throwaway prices for construction of a corporate office. Incidentally, this piece of land behind the Delhi Assembly was meant for setting up a power grid to augment the system.

The Government was also evasive on the issue of private contractors employed under the single point programme and the fate of the hundreds of crores of arrears pending with these contractors or the private companies towards the Government. What the Power Minister did not come out with was the details of the staggering amount that is pending towards the Delhi Government with the three discoms. It is estimated that the discoms own the Delhi Government around Rs. 5,000 crores in addition to the Rs. 800 crores worth of collections during May and June 2002, the last two months of the erstwhile DVB era.

At the time of privatisation, under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the private discoms were to disburse all the old arrears and collections in the 80:20 ratio in favour of the Delhi Government. However, till date not more than Rs. 250 crores has been received and the Government is mysteriously silent on the rest of the amount, a charge even levelled by the Nationalist Congress Party MLA, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri.

Similarly, there was no mention of the controversial Voluntary Retirement Scheme floated by the private discoms without the consent of the Delhi Government.

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