Chandigarh, 9 December
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab senior leader and MLA Aman Arora has blamed the Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) governments for plunging the state’s power department (Powercom) into a fiscal deficit. While they have thrown Powercom into a quagmire of subsidies to reap the harvest of votes, they have also paved the way for power mafia to finish state’s deptt. He said that the burden of liabilities of Powercom was increasing and its revenue was decreasing.
In a statement issued from the party headquarters here on Thursday, MLA Aman Arora said, “Powercom, the source of light and irrigation in Punjab, has run into a financial deficit of Rs 2,000 crore. The reason is that the government agencies do not pay their electricity bills and the governments have not paid the required subsidy amount to the agencies. The tragic aspect was that the Badals who had been the head of the SAD-BJP government had slammed the deptt with deadly power pact and the power mafia Powercom and as a result, getting out of the quagmire of losses has become a major headache for Powercom.”
Mr. Arora said that previous SAD-BJP government had entered into expensive power purchase agreements with private power plants (coal plants and solar plants) and created power mafia in the state which had started deteriorating the financial condition of Powercom. He also accused the Congress government of continuing costly power deals and not taking any concrete action against the such mafia.
AAP leader said that the Congress government claimed that the government schools in Punjab are better than the government schools in Delhi, when the reality is that more than 5000 schools in the state are not capable of paying the electricity bill. Apart from government schools, police stations, water supply deptt and other government agencies, including house bills of Congress and Akali leaders owe crores of money to the powercom. Besides, crores of rupees of subsidies given by the governments in the power sector have not been paid by the SAD-BJP governments nor by the Congress government.
Arora said that governments must provide subsidy on electricity bills to the general public, but also manage the amount of subsidy properly so that the financial health of Powercom remains fine. He asked the Congress, “Why has the Channi government not taken any action against the power mafia that is killing the Powercom? Channi government is treating the power mafia same as Capt. Amarinder Singh used to do.”
MLA Arora alleged that the Congress government led by Charanjit Singh Channi is playing tricks of providing cheap electricity and canceling the power deals to improve their image in the eyes of people, and only in consideration of elections. Similarly, to mislead the people, Channi government has given the go-ahead to get the vigilance department to probe into the deadly power purchase agreements reached during the SAD-BJP government and waiver of fines for private power plants. He said that again in elections Congress is trying to deceive the people in the name of taking action against the power mafia when power mafia people are there sitting right and left there with Chief Minister Charanjit Singh.
Aman Arora said that the Congress government should make efforts at the grass root level to improve the financial position of Powercom. The government should fundamentally cancel the deadly power deals and take stern action against the power mafia. In addition of recovering the pending electricity bills of government agencies and Congress-Akali leaders, the subsidy money should also be released to Powercom immediately.
