Board is responsible for power theft and corruption, says Silavat

OUR STAFF REPORTER Indore

During the public hearings, held on Wednesday to discuss proposed 27 per cent hike in power tariff, the objectors pinpointed several loophole s of the Discoms in the presence of Chairman of MP Electricity Regulatory Commission ( MPERC), Rakesh Sahini.

The commission was adamant to present its side during the meeting and requested the objectors not to move away from the main issue— Proposed Tariff Hike.

As many as 100 objections were raised during the meeting by the representatives of various organisations like Vikas Drishti Mitra, Kishan Sangh, Kirloskar Brothers, Idea Cellular, Poultry Farm Association and other domestic, non domestic and agricultural associations.

Congress MLA Tulsi Silavat thanked the Commission for holding the hearings in the city but opposed the ERC move to hike power tariff by 27 per cent and protested that the ERC is only interested in increasing power tariff.

'The main objectives of the ERC are: setting tariff rate, good governance and efficient supply to consumers.

However, it seems that the commission is interested in hiking power tariff only,'the congress leader said.

He added that the issue is very important and consumer- centric and he had to give a miss to inaugural day of the state Assemblys budget session.

He said that the information was not given through notification in newspaper but the chairman said that the public information was given to everybody.

Silavat further said a farmer earns an income of Rs 20,000 from one acre of land and pays power bill of Rs 17,000. The price of 3HP pumps has also been increased by 13 fold. He compared the tariff of neighboring Gujarat, which gives subsidy to consumers to which the Chairman said that both the states have different pattern of giving subsidy, so they should not be compared.

The MLA further added that the major reason of increase in power tariff is loss. 'The board is responsible for power theft and from lineman to chief engineer are involved in minting money by helping power thieves,'he said.

He presented some facts and said that the vigilance squad files fake cases, which result in death of many farmers and consumers.

'Farmers and cold storage would be badly hit by the proposed power hikes. A temporary connection is given for three months only while irrigation of Rabi and Kharif crops needs at least four months time,'Silavat said.

President of Kisan Sangh ( Burhanpur) Raghunath Singh Patil said rural people are facing partial attitude of Discom and they were getting power supply for 6- 7 hours only in comparison to uninterrupted power supply in the urban areas.

'As per the Discom, power supply from 12- 6 pm should be supplied in the houses.

But it often starts with a delay of one and a half hours and interestingly the monthly power bill remains the same,'Patil said.

He demanded that there should be cut in power bill in case of reduced power supply. He further said for installation of transformers, farmers have to spend from their own source.

'The Discom team presents inflated bill and also demands that the farmers should use ISI standard motors for irrigation purpose.

The team also instructs them that the consumers should bear expenses for any damage caused to the transformers,'he said adding that the contractors employed by the Discoms used to install transformers on 20 years old pillars, which could be down at any moment. MP Electricity Board Pensioners Associations Chand Manjil said the Discoms failed to control their expenses and that is the reason why they wanted to hike power tariff. He said that where one chief engineer is enough, the Discom recruits 100 chief engineers with hefty salaries.

'The major reason of power hike is inability of the Discoms to curb power pilferage. One can see illegal connections for religious programmes and the Discom could do nothing against the violators,'Manjil said.

He further added that the posts of meter readers have been vanished and there is no proper monitoring on meters, which are running slow and causing loss to the Discoms. Sanjay Agrawal of Consumer Forum said that the power bills should be simplified. He alleged that an illegal way of recovery is going on in the O& M division. The Discom recovers money through Lok Adalats. Taking a dig at rules set by Discom, Industrialist Gautam Kothari said that its so complicated that a case of power theft was lodged against the chairman of the commission.

As everybody consumes more than 75 units at a set power supply of 1.5 kw, the honest consumers feels cheated and feels that he is paying for the power theft made by others.

PC Nene, chairman of the society and former president of MPEB said that the Indore Municipal Corporation, which is the largest consumer of the Board, will be badly hit if power tariff is hiked.

Noted social activist Kishore Kodwani supported him in his speech and said that the corporation has power to purchase power supply from a grid in open market. He said the plan to hike tariff exposed the inefficiency of the Discom in curbing T& D losses and week administration and poor consumers will pay for no fault of theirs.

Ashok Khandeliya of Association of Industries said each of 63,000 employees of the electricity board are getting 400 unit of free electricity supply and common consumers should not pay for the expense caused by employees.

During the hearing, officials of the ERC, the Discom officials, Sanjay Muhase, CE Ujjain, AW Khan, SE Indore circle and DK Tripathi, Public Relation Officer, were present.