JOIN USOver 100 Resident Welfare Associations today petitioned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demanding a scrutiny of accounts of private power distribution companies by the Comptroller and Auditor General.
In the letter to the PM, the RWAs said the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission has been heeding to the demands of discoms to hike tariff though their balance sheets reflected clear profits.
"We have sent a petition to the Prime Minister demanding a CAG scrutiny of the accounts of the discoms," President of East Delhi RWAs Joint Front B S Vohra said.
Demanding rollback
The RWAs across the city have been demanding a roll back of the 26 per cent hike in power tariff effected by Delhi's power regulator DERC in July. BJP as well as Arvind Kejriwal and his supporters have also been demanding roll back of the hike. Vohra said RWAs have sent copies of the petition to Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and DERC chief P D Sudhakar. "Though the audited balance sheets of discoms exhibit clear profits, still DERC admits their plea of losses. As a result, power tariff is being revised upwards regularly and consumers are forced to pay high rates due to monopolistic practices of the companies," the RWAs said in the petition.
Hiked four times
Power tariff for domestic consumers was hiked by a steep 26 per cent -- the fourth increase in last one year - which came as a shock to people already burdened by high inflation and petrol price rise.
The DERC, which was making last-minute preparations to announce the new tariff, after receiving the government directive, had indicated that it had planned to cut down the tariff by 20 to 25 per cent as discoms would have a surplus of around Rs 4,000 crore if the existing tariff was not changed.