The Hindu : New Delhi News : BJP Councillors criticise Sheila

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Friday, Sep 02, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

BJP Councillors criticise Sheila

Staff Reporter

`Discoms should take the entire burden'

The Delhi Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party Councillors have flayed Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit for agreeing to share the subsidy in order to rollback the hike in power tariffs. Demanding that the private distribution companies should take the entire burden, senior BJP councillor Vijender Kumar Gupta has termed the "arrangement" as a conspiracy between the Congress Government and the discoms to siphon off the public money.

In a press statement, Mr. Gupta said the Delhi Government was actively involved in protecting the financial interest of discoms. "No subsidy can be given by the Delhi Government to these private companies for meeting their losses since, no provision whatsoever has been made in the budget estimates. If crores of rupees are paid as subsidy to bridge the losses, it will severely affect other development schemes. Moreover, the increase in power tariffs will be recovered by the Government from citizens by levying new taxes," he added.

Mr. Gupta claimed that as per agreement between the Delhi Government and discoms, the former was not bound to bridge losses of private companies. According to agreement, the State Government could only give loan up to Rs.3,450 crores without interest or with prevalent rate of interest, that too from year 2002-2003 to 2006-2007, he said, and claimed that the fact was, after the privatisation scheme, the discoms never suffered capital loss.

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