The Hindu : New Delhi News : Opposition to power tariff rise grows stronger

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 24, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

Opposition to power tariff rise grows stronger

Sujay Mehdudia

Even as DERC prepares for new rates for the fourth year in a row

NEW DELHI: Even as the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Authority (DERC) is in the process of giving a final shape to the new power tariff order, expected to come in the first week of July, opposition to any further increase is gaining momentum with political parties, residents' welfare associations and non-government organisations coming out into the open against any further increase in charges for the fourth year in a row.

The Delhi Resident's Welfare Association Joint Front, the United Residents Joint Association, leading NGO People's Action and the political leadership cutting across party lines have strongly opposed any hike in power tariffs. Instead they are demanding that strict action be taken against the private power distribution companies for their failure to check theft for which they were penalising the honest consumers. People's Action as well as the Delhi Resident's Welfare Association Joint Front have gone to the extent of demanding that the arrangement with BSES be terminated as it has failed to put in place an efficient and effective system during the past almost four years and has instead been harassing consumers.

"The issue is fixation of fair tariff that should be based on average procurement cost and reasonable distribution cost. It should not exceed Rs. 2.60 per unit. The existing tariff determination process does not do justice to consumers and provides and opportunity to DERC to fix higher tariffs to benefit the private discoms," said Pankaj Aggarwal, secretary of RWAs' Joint Front.

It is not only the residents who are unhappy with the performance of private discoms or are opposed to power tariff hike but also the political representatives. "We are opposed to any power tariff hike. We had sought a 10 per cent subsidy last year and will not allow any hike this time round also. The private companies are harassing the honest consumers when power theft is taking place blatantly," said DPCC president Ram Babu Sharma.

Similarly, senior Nationalist Congress Party leader and MLA from Badarpur Ramvir Singh Bidhuri said there was no case for any tariff hike at a time when the performance of the power discoms was poor and the people of Delhi were reeling under continued load shedding and power cuts stretching from two to five hours everyday. "It is unfortunate that even after four years of privatisation nothing had changed. The consumers are being harassed by private companies and there is no end to the issues of inflated bills, fast running meters and failure to redress grievances."

The BJP too has strongly opposed the idea of a tariff hike and has sought that last year's subsidy be continued for the consumers. "If the Delhi Government can subsidise the power and water bills of the bureaucrats by 50 per cent then I see no reason why the same facility cannot be extended to consumes in general. The Government cannot squander away taxpayers money and pass on the benefits of that to one small section of the officialdom," said senior BJP leader and Saket MLA Vijay Jolly.

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