NEW DELHI: Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit on Saturday demanded that the AAP government should exempt power bills of Delhiites for the next six month as it had “looted” the people in favour of power discoms.
“The power companies have collected Rs 7,401 crore from the people on fixed charges and pension fund, and this money should be adjusted by not billing the consumers for the next six months,” Dikshit said at a press conference at the DPCC office.
Dikshit was flanked by Delhi Congress working presidents Haroon Yusuf and Rajesh Lilothia, former Delhi ministers Mangat Ram Singhal, Ramakant Goswami and Kiran Walia among others.
In the name of relief, Dikshit claimed, the Kejriwal government had created “a drama by installing lakhs of new power meters to openly benefit the power companies”. “It then increased the fixed charges by many folds on electricity bills, which used to be nominal before, and collected thousands of crores of rupees of the hard-earned income of the people of Delhi,” the Congress veteran said.
Giving details, former Delhi power minister Haroon Yusuf claimed the discoms had collected `7,401 cr from the power consumers as fixed charges in the last one and a half years.
“From 1st April, 2018 to 31st March, 2019, the BYPL had collected Rs 1,139 crore in the name of fixed charges, BRPL collected Rs 2,096 crore and TPDDL collected Rs 1,474 corer from the people. If the fund is calculated at this rate up to 31 July 2019, an additional amount of Rs 1,569 crore would be added, and then the amount collected as fixed charges would come to Rs 6,278 crore,” he said.
The pension fund is collected at the rate of 16.3 per cent, which amounts to Rs 1,023 crore, he said, adding that the total amount needlessly collected comes to Rs 7,401 crore.
Lilothia said a high-level Congress delegation will meet Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to take up the unnecessary burden imposed on the power consumers.