Power revenue plan faulty: INLD
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 16
Former Haryana Finance Minister and national spokesman for the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) Sampat Singh has urged the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) to reject the projected annual revenue requirement (ARR) of the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) and Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (UHBVN) for 2009-10.

Responding to a notice inviting objections to the ARRs, Sampat Singh said the HERC should ask the power utilities to draw a fresh ARR based on facts. He alleged that the utilities were trying to cover up their large-scale bungling, inefficiency and mismanagement. He pointed out that the inefficiency level had touched such a low point that there were discrepancies even in the figures given in the ARR and the executive summary.

He recalled that the last decade of the 20th century was marked by honest efforts to usher in genuine reforms in the power sector so that power was made available to consumers efficiently and at reasonable rates. He regretted that unfortunately the recent years had seen a slide back to the years when the consumer was shoddily treated and a national objective was being treated with disdain.

The INLD leader said the utilities had failed to respond to the public queries on their representations in 2008-09, as a consequence of which the HERC had not been able to pass orders regarding those representations. The current financial year was coming to an end without the issues being resolved, the HERC should, therefore, summarily dismiss the projected ARR for 2009-10 till the utilities set their house in order in accordance with the Electricity Act, 2003.

He pointed out that for 2009-10, the utilities had proposed a subsidy of Rs 9,180 crore for the rural energy (RE) as against Rs 2,360 crore last year - a fourfold increase that had no justification. In Punjab, where 9,408 million units of power were supplied to the rural sector without any charges, the subsidy bill amounted to Rs 2,264.92 crore while in Haryana where only 6,000 million units were supplied and charged, the proposed subsidy was Rs 2,360 crore