The Hindu : New Delhi News : Residents take Government to task on power, water

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 18, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

Residents take Government to task on power, water

Staff Reporter

`Working of Delhi Govt., Jal Board and BSES highly unsatisfactory'

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Residents' Welfare Joint Front has expressed serious concern over the water and power situation in the city and highlighted the poor role of power distribution companies and the Delhi Jal Board during their interaction with the Delhi Government this past weekend.

Joint Front secretary Pankaj Aggarwal said a large number of representatives spoke at the meeting about their hardships due to inefficient management of the water and power sectors. The participants were unanimous that the work culture in the Delhi Government, the Delhi Jal Board and BSES was highly unsatisfactory, he added.

Demanding an action plan from the Delhi Government for a long-term solution of the crisis, the representatives also termed as shameful the incident relating to arrest of innocent residents of Nehru Nagar in South Delhi who had gone to DJB headquarters demanding water. Condemning the incident, the RWA representatives said it was an indication of what would happen if effective and immediate measures were not taken to improve the working of the departments at the ground level.

Mr. Aggarwal welcomed the announcement by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit that an amount of Rs. 50 lakhs had been sanctioned for each district to be spent on development projects with the concurrence of RWAs.

Mr. Aggrwal said several important issues could not be discussed due to paucity of time. "There is a need for the Chief Minister and senior officials to make surprise inspections of offices so that they are aware of the position on the water front. The availability of water tankers also needs to be improved and there has to be an improvement in the grievance redress system for the consumers with immediate effect," he said.

Mr. Aggarwal said there was a need for capacity building of RWAs and consumers so that they could effectively intervene in the tariff fixation and other matters.

He said the RWAs and citizens should be represented on the boards of the private power distribution companies so that their voice was also heard.

He said the current tariff determination process did not provide a level playing field to the consumers.

"The Annual Revenue Reports filed by power companies run into thousand of pages and consumers are not in a position to analyse them in such a format."

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