M.P.Govt. grilled over meters issue

By Our Staff Correspondent

BHOPAL, AUG. 23 The Madhya Pradesh Government found itself in a tight corner today during discussion on an adjournment motion in the Assembly against the Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board's ``one-sided'' decision to replace old electricity meters with electronic ones.

Initiating the discussion on electricity meters, the Mr. Sitasharan Sharma, BJP, said the State electricity Board has started a massive exercise of replacing the old meters with new electronic ones without identifying any flaw with the existing meters. To make matters worse, people are being forced to pay an inflated amount for the new meters as well as the cost of replacement.

Among those who spoke from the BJP side were Mr. Anup Mishra, Mr. Sunil Shukla, and Mr. Kailash Vijayvargiya. Countering allegations of corruption in the purchase of electronic meters, Mr. Chaudhary Rakesh Singh, Congress, said only meters by agencies approved by the Centre had been purchased.

The contention of the BJP members was that nobody wants to run away from paying electricity charges but the problem, according to them, was that they were being forced to pay exorbitant cost for the State Electricity Board's wrong decision to install the electronic meters.

At one point, the Chief Minister, Mr. Digvijay Singh, was also involved in an argument with BJP's Mr. Kamal Patel. The MLAs even rushed to the well of the in protest, but the issue was amicably resolved.

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Section  : Other States
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