Power games
15 Nov 2014 11:34 PM GMT
Private discoms owned by industrialist Anil Ambani which are responsible for ensuring Delhi’s power have tripped at not just the morality lines again but have also failed to adhere in principle to the Delhi High Court’s mandate that audit of private power companies shall be carried out by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India . The CAG has rightly lambasted top bureaucrats of the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) who have failed in essaying the facilitator’s role despite having a 49 per cent share in the private discoms.
The files that have failed to reach the CAG include those on metering and bill collection. How can the private discoms justify their actions will be interesting to look at. While supply has normalised since the power crisis of June, earlier this year there still is every possibility that many areas might still be having irregular power supply. As far as the accounts of the private discoms are concerned, there have been on many occasions’ reports about them being botched.
It is ridiculous how the auditor of the accounts of the discoms are being made to wait for in infinite period and it becomes even more suspicious how the state machinery has been doing absolutely doing nothing as far as these two discoms are concerned. When the Tata group owned Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited discom has submitted all relevant files, why is that the Anil Ambani owned discoms have been left off the hook? DERC has withdrawn the surcharges which it was levying to benefit private power suppliers.
How can one be so sure that the surcharges were withdrawn because of new inputs from the National Power Thermal Corporation on power production costs? Nobody can deny the eventuality of a political intervention but if DERC was trying to levy additional charges without ensuring a proper audit of private discoms, it is engaging in something grossly uncalled for.
The files that have failed to reach the CAG include those on metering and bill collection. How can the private discoms justify their actions will be interesting to look at. While supply has normalised since the power crisis of June, earlier this year there still is every possibility that many areas might still be having irregular power supply. As far as the accounts of the private discoms are concerned, there have been on many occasions’ reports about them being botched.
It is ridiculous how the auditor of the accounts of the discoms are being made to wait for in infinite period and it becomes even more suspicious how the state machinery has been doing absolutely doing nothing as far as these two discoms are concerned. When the Tata group owned Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited discom has submitted all relevant files, why is that the Anil Ambani owned discoms have been left off the hook? DERC has withdrawn the surcharges which it was levying to benefit private power suppliers.
How can one be so sure that the surcharges were withdrawn because of new inputs from the National Power Thermal Corporation on power production costs? Nobody can deny the eventuality of a political intervention but if DERC was trying to levy additional charges without ensuring a proper audit of private discoms, it is engaging in something grossly uncalled for.
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