Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has announced 667 litres of free water and reduced electricity tariffs in lower slabs, poll promises that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had made.
Fulfilling yet another major poll promise, the AAP on Tuesday gave a new year's gift to the people of Delhi and announced a 50 percent subsidy on power consumption of up to 400 units while appearing all set to order a CAG audit of three private power distribution companies.
The power tariff decision was announced a day after AAP implemented the first promise of free water supply of 667 litres a day.
Having said that he was working on a timeline of 48 hours because he wasn’t sure if his government would survive, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal announced the subsidy. “Till the audit report is done, in order to provide relief to middle-class consumers, the government will give a subsidy for reducing the tariff by 50% in the slabs of 0-200 units and 201-400 units. We are confident that once the CAG report is submitted, the subsidy will not be required.’’
The chief minister said that on paper the subsidy will cost the government about Rs 200 crore for the quarter ending March 31, but in reality the government would bear only Rs 61 crore of the cost, which would be paid to Tata Power Delhi.
The remaining Rs 139 crore will be adjusted against the Rs 4,000 crore plus, which the BSES discoms owe to the Delhi government’s generation and transmission companies. He said the discoms would be directed to bill consumers according to the government decision with effect from January 1, 2014, onwards.
He claimed the government will achieve two objectives—lowering of tariff as well as securing the pending dues of IPGCL/PPCL and Delhi Transco. It was a win-win situation for both consumers as well as Delhi government, he said.
Industry experts, however, argue that the entire subsidy cost to be borne by the government would be about Rs 1,400 crore a year. “One has to see the whole picture. Delhi government is already paying Rs 570 crore a year for the current subsidy against the 0-200 and 200-400 units slabs. The additional subsidy would amount to Rs 800 crore a year. The BSES discoms have said in the past that they are not in a position to pay their outstanding dues to Transco, IPGCL or PPCL. So, the government is taking the taxpayers’ money in the form of a subsidy and giving it to the BSES discoms to help clear their dues,’’ said an expert. Others said the move would signal further problems for the government.
“This is not healthy for the public or the power sector and it encourages higher consumption. The reason discoms are in losses is because they were not granted an adequate tariff hike by the regulator and their losses have since gone up,’’ said former principal power secretary Shakti Sinha.
No comments:
Post a Comment