New Delhi: Delhi Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena on Tuesday asked the Chief Secretary to inquire into the alleged "irregularities and discrepancies" in the power subsidy given by the AAP government to BSES Discoms. The L-G has sought a report from the Chief Secretary within seven days as to why the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) order of February 19, 2018, directing the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) to pay electricity subsidies to consumers through DBT, has not been implemented till now.
The order had inter alia stated that the GNCTD may consider transferring power subsidy to the beneficiaries as is already being done by the government in the matter of distribution of LPG subsidy. This, the DERC had said, will obviate the need for conducting any Audit. According to a source, the L-G has received a complaint raising several issues of impropriety and discrepancies in the power subsidy matter, said a source.
The source further claimed that the complainant has alleged that a massive scam was affected by Jasmine Shah, the AAP Spokesperson and Vice Chairman of Dialogue & Development Commission of Delhi (DDC), as well as Naveen Gupta, the son of AAP MP ND Gupta, the Kejriwal government appointed Directors on the Board of Directors of private DISCOMS, BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd. (BRPL) & BSES Yamuna Power Ltd. (BYPL), owned by the Anil Ambani Group.
The Delhi government has 49 percent shares in these private DISCOMS. The complainants comprising eminent lawyers, jurists, and law professionals, have alleged that "instead of recovering its outstanding dues of Rs 21,250 crore on account of default in payment for power purchased by defaulting vendor DISCOMS (BRPL and BYPL) from State-owned Power Generation Companies and debarring it from further business in Delhi, the AAP got into a cozy deal with the BRPL and BYPL by way of agreeing to let them settle their outstanding dues against future payments to be made to them by the government in the shape of subsidy reimbursements for supposedly free power that they provided to the consumers. This amounted to a sum of Rs 11,550 crore being settled as reimbursements."
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Unduly allowed the DISCOMS to charge Late Payment Surcharge (LPSC) at a rate of 18 percent from the people and pay the same at a rate of 12 percent only to the Delhi Government owned Power Generation Companies, in the process providing them a windfall gain of Rs 8,500 crore at the cost of the state exchequer", the complainants have alleged as per the source. It has also violated its own Cabinet decision of 2015-16, which entailed that Audits of BRPL and BYPL be conducted every year for electricity subsidy paid to them by the Delhi Government. It allowed for no audit to be done even as payments amounting to Rs 11,500 crore kept getting settled in favor of BRPL and BYPL; and blocked the implementation of DBT in the disbursal of power subsidy to the people in contravention of the DERC order of 2018, with the sole aim of concealing the actual number of subsidy beneficiaries and thereby paying unverified amounts to these DISCOMS, paving the way for kick-backs and commissions", it said.
As per the complainants, earlier the senior government officers of the Delhi Government were nominated as Directors on the Board of Directors of BRPL and BYPL to represent the Delhi Government - as the Delhi government owns 49 percent shares of BYPL and BRPL - so that interests of the government are protected. However, AAP appointed active political functionaries of its party, viz. Jasmine Shah, Naveen ND Gupta as nominee Directors on the Board of Directors of BRPL and BYPL, so that this exercise of swindling public money in collusion with these two Anil Ambani-owned companies could be carried out without any intervention of Govt. Servants, the complainants have alleged. The complainants have demanded that a thorough inquiry be done and action against the government nominated Directors to be taken, said the source. (With Agency Inputs)
