The Hindu : New Delhi News : Replace electronic meters: BJP

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Nov 18, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Replace electronic meters: BJP

Staff Reporter

Demands refund with interest the excess amount paid due to fast running meters

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party has asked the Delhi Government and Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission to immediately replace over 10 lakh electronic meters that have been installed in residential premises across the Capital and to refund with interest the excess amount recovered from the consumers due to their fast running.

Claiming that these meters were not real power consumption reading machines and were instead giving inflated readings due to their inherent faults, the party unit president, Harsh Vardhan said on Thursday that BJP had started an intensive signature campaign in Delhi against the alleged loot of the power companies and the connivance of the Government with them. Noting that people had responded with great enthusiasm, he said over 10 lakh aggrieved consumers have deposited their signed protest letters with the BJP.

Now these protest letters, he said, would be submitted by a delegation of the BJP to the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, and he would be requested to protect the citizens of Delhi from the alleged loot of the power companies.

The President would also be urged to take initiative to punish the Delhi Government for its alleged involvement in the malpractices.

In a statement issued here on Thursday, the BJP Delhi Pradesh President demanded that the Government and the DERC should impose heavy penalty on all the three private power distribution companies and they be prosecuted for alleged cheating the consumers.

The statement also said that on a complaint by a power consumer to it regarding fast running meters and recording of excess power consumption, the Delhi High Court had appointed former General Manager of the Delhi Transco, M.K. Chaudhary, as an expert and he was required to submit his report after making an enquiry into the case.

The BJP leader said in his report submitted on Wednesday, Mr Chaudhary has explained that the power distribution companies have deliberately installed wrongly designed meters in residential premises across the Capital and these are now showing fictitious consumption. While the previous electro magnetic meters recorded only the consumption from the wire through power supply phase, the new meters record the power even leaking or flowing through the neutral wire and so the companies are preparing bills according to a reading, which is inflated.

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