Compounding fee for power theft will be brought down: CM

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, SEPT. 22. Amid a walkout by the Opposition, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, on Saturday, gave an assurance to the agitated members of the Assembly that the compounding fee for pilferage of power would be brought down to a `realistic level', sealing of electricity meters completed on a war footing basis and one-time settlement of bills revived. He also ruled out forcible collection of bills and harassment of consumers.

Replying to a notice under rule 304 tabled by Mr. Asaduddin Owaisi (MIM) and 30 others on `Raids conducted by AP Transco in the Twin Cities', the Chief Minister said the effort was to check power theft which was contributing to the overall losses of the AP Transco and not to harass people. The overall losses combined with not so satisfactory hydel power generation may cast an additional subsidy burden of Rs.1,600 crores on the Government this year.

Responding to other clarifications sought by members, he said as part of efforts to save energy on the agriculture front, 20 lakh capacitors would be purchased and installed at a cost of Rs.200 crores. Applications for new agriculture connections and regularisation submitted before and after the Rythu Janmabhoomi would be processed on a seniority basis including them in the 50,000 connections to be released every year. Appealing to the members to motivate people against stealing power and to pay their bills, he said an advisory committees would be constituted at Assembly and substation levels, with MLAs, to monitor power supply and look into the complaints. A Consumer Grievances Week would be observed from October 5 to 12.

Dissatisfied with the Chief Minister's reply, the Congress(I), MIM and CPI(M) members staged a walk out. Leading the protest, the leader of the Opposition, Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, said it was unfortunate that at a time when people were reeling under drought, the AP Transco was bent on collecting the bills forcibly, sending them to jail. He also objected to the way the discussion on the Yeleru land and Krushi Bank scams being given a short shrift.

The MIM's protest as articulated by Mr. Owaisi was the continuing harassment of people in Hyderabad in the name of checking theft, delay in sealing of meters, no categorical assurance on reducing the compounding fee and no action on AP Transco employees. Mr. N. Narasimhaiah (CPI-M) expressed similar views.

The Chief Minister said it was sad that the Opposition had staged a walkout, though he had cleared all their doubts. He condemned the way the Assembly time was wasted on extraneous issues and termed it as undemocratic. By staging a walkout as a protest on the raids, they have sent a wrong signal to the people that they encouraged theft of power.

Earlier, Mr. Naidu refuted the charge that the raids were more on a particular community or it was confined to the old city here. Against 6,794 cases of pilferage and other malpractices registered in the city, 3,640 were Hindus and about 3,100 Muslims. The concentration was in city and the South Circle encompassing the old city as the losses were more. The energy audit of the 114 towns in the State showed that only 44 towns had losses below 10 per cent in June 2000. This figure has risen to 100 towns in July and of the remaining, 13 had losses between 10 and 12 per cent. It was only in Hyderabad that the losses exceeded 20 per cent.

While the total loss sustained by the city in August was 79.514 million units, all the other 113 towns put together accounted for 46.341 MUs. Within the city, South Circle alone accounted for a loss of 41.822 MUs, almost equalling the loss sustained by 113 towns. He went on to provide percentages of losses for all the 13 Assembly constituencies in the Twin Cities. The allegation of harassment of people was also wrong. While the percentage of persons arrested to the number of cases registered for the State as a whole was 6.5 per cent, in respect of the city, it was only 3.2 per cent.

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Section  : Southern States
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