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Congress MLAs oppose electronic meters

Staff Reporter

Reinstall old electro-magnetic meters, demand party legislators at a meeting chaired by Chief Minister

NEW DELHI: An interaction meant to educate the members of the Delhi Assembly about the working of electronic meters turned out to be a major embarrassment for the Sheila Dikshit Government on Tuesday as a majority of the MLAs strongly opposed the installation of electronic meters and demanded that the old electro-magnetic ones be re-installed all over the Capital.

The meeting organised by the Power Department and chaired by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit saw a very poor turnout of MLAs with hardly 18 of them marking their presence. Some MLAs stayed away from the meeting stating they could not be party to the Government's efforts to defend the current meter testing drive and speak in favour of the private distribution companies.

But the major embarrassment came from the Congress benches with a majority of the MLAs not only opposing the new electronic meters but also decrying attempts to justify their installation in large number. Blaming the discoms and the bureaucracy for having damaged the image of the Congress party, the MLAs said nothing short of reverting to old meters was acceptable to them. Taking the lead, the Sultanpuri MLA, Jai Kishen termed the installation of new meters as a conspiracy by the private companies to strike at the roots of the support base of the Congress party. Stating that he and his colleagues were opposed to the installation of electronic meters, Mr. Jai Kishen said the entire exercise was a farce and today's presentation was also being done to fool the elected representatives. He said the MLAs were ready to spare funds from their Constituency Development Fund to assist in the exercise of re-installing the old electro-magnetic meters. Warning against any kind of complacency in the matter, the Congress MLA said that if corrective measures were not taken then the Congress would have to pay a very heavy price.

Joining the chorus was another vocal Congress MLA Shadi Ram who said the electronic meters were unacceptable. Mr. Ram said under the garb of installing electronic meters, the private companies were looting the common man and serving inflated bills on them. What was more shocking is that there was no redressal of such grievances by the private discoms and the consumers were left to fend for themselves. Another party legislator, Sat Pal Singh Bittoo, who made a vociferous plea that the present drive to install electronic meters should be suspended immediately, said that old meters should be brought back.

Responding to the concerns of the MLAs, the Chief Minister said the Government was aware about the situation and would take up with the power companies to undertake a house-to-house survey for checking the wiring system and other such faults in the Capital so that the issue of faulty bills and fast running meters was addressed.

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