NEW DELHI: Congress veteran Sheila Dikshit met CM Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday and urged him to waive off fixed electricity charges in the city. However, the AAP leaders claimed that the current rates of electricity were cheaper than what consumers paid during the Dikshit regime and added that the complaints of the Congress delegation were countered with facts, leaving them speechless.
A memorandum signed by Dikshit was submitted to Kejriwal. “The Delhi Congress demands that the AAP government should not bill the power consumers for next six months as the state government has illegally collected `7,401 cr from them in the name of fixed charges and pensions funds to favour discoms,” it said.
The Delhi Congress has stepped up attack on the ruling AAP over issues related to power and water supply, which the ruling dispensation claims were its biggest achievements, in the run up to the Delhi election due in early 2020.
After the meeting, Delhi Congress working president Haroon Yusuf said Dikshit raised the power and water crises being faced by people during the meeting. “The AAP says fixed charges could not be withdrawn due to the Model Code of Conduct, which is a blatant lie. It started collecting charges a year ago,” said Yusuf, who was earlier the power minister.
The Congress delegation also discussed power outages, particularly in poor pockets, problems of the contaminated and scarce supply of water during the meeting, Yusuf said. “The Delhi Jal Board is supplying 900 Million Gallons per Day water against the peak demand of 1,200 MGD, resulting in a massive water shortage,” the memorandum said.
Yusuf told the media that Kejriwal agreed to order a probe into how crores of rupees on fixed charges were collected to benefit the power discoms. Later, power minister Satyender Jain said if Dikshit had remained in office, the bill for 50 units would have been around `760 per month. “However, it is just `128. This means a saving of `632 per month. Consumers would have been paying five times of what they are paying today if Dikshit had been in power.”
AAP chief spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj said in 2013 when the AAP leadership had sought an appointment with Dikshit, the CM’s staff had refused to oblige Kejriwal. “The AAP is a people’s party and if any member of the public wishes to meet the CM, we believe it is our duty to give them an audience.”