The Hindu : New Delhi News : Record recovery of electricity tax by MCD in the Capital

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Thursday, Jan 10, 2008
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Record recovery of electricity tax by MCD in the Capital

Staff Reporter

“Over Rs. 260 crore recovered from two power discoms”

NEW DELHI: In an oblique reply to Leader of the Opposition J. K. Sharma’s statement accusing the Municipal Corporation of Delhi of lagging behind in revenue collection this past year, MCD Standing Committee Chairman Vijender Gupta on Wednesday said the civic body had made a “record recovery of electricity tax worth Rs.429 crore”.

In a statement on Wednesday, Mr. Gupta said: “Over Rs.200 crore has been recovered from BSES and Rs.60 crore from NDPL. The discoms have also promised that they will clear the balance amount of Rs.169 crore soon. Thus the civic body will receive a total payment of Rs.429 crore as electricity tax during the current financial year.”

Mr. Gupta informed that the civic body had recovered Rs.182 crore in electricity tax in the last financial year (2006-2007) and the substantial supplement had been made possible only due to the pressure that had been put on the discoms to pay up their arrears.

Warning issued

He warned that the civic body would come down heavily on any organisation that owed it money and said that the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) had been approached to apprise it of the manner in which discoms were manipulating payment and equating it with streetlight consumption.

“We have complied with DERC’s order that fixed the maintenance charges per point at Rs.73 per month (a total of Rs.24.5 crore annually). Even so, the discoms are not maintaining the lights properly,” he added.

Despite repeated requests for installation of electricity meters at all MCD-run parks and gardens to enable accurate recovery of electricity bills, no meters had been installed yet. “We are being charged at the flat rate of eight hours per day per pump. This is illogical as the pumps are not in operation continuously for eight hours,” he said.

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