Sunday, Sep 22, 2002
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Kerala
By Our Special Correspondent
In a statement here today, Mr. Achuthanandan said the figures contained in an article written by the Minister on September 9 was intended to convey to the people the impression that there was a huge gap between the KSEB's revenue and expenditure. The Minister's claim was that the Board's monthly expenditure was Rs. 320 crores, revenue Rs. 220 crores and debt servicing Rs. 120 crores. However, the KSEB's budget for 2002- '03, tabled in the Assembly, showed that the Board's monthly debt servicing burden came to only Rs. 90 crores and its monthly income on an average was Rs. 236 crores till August this year. This meant that the actual monthly revenue would be much more by the end of the year. Mr. Achuthanandan pointed out that though the Minister had put the monthly fuel bill at Rs. 20 crores, such a heavy expenditure could come only if the Brahmapuram and Kozhikode units together generated 25 lakh units of power every day. Actually, they were generating only between 7 and 10 lakh units daily. This meant that the Minister had deliberately given inflated figures. The Opposition Leader said the figure fudging was intended to justify the Government move to downsize KSEB and place a heavy financial burden on the people thereby hastening the moves for privatisation of the KSEB. According to him, there was sufficient ground to believe that the Government had no inclination to collect the power tariff arrears due from Government institutions or explore avenues to strengthen the KSEB. Although the Centre had withdrawn the 16 per cent excise duty on naphtha, the State had not cared to withdraw the 4 per cent sales tax on it. It had also rejected the Centre's proposal that the State could use drought relief assistance to cover the additional expenditure on thermal power and the offer to subsidise the cost of thermal power, he said. Criticising the Government move to retrench KSEB employees and slash their salaries and other benefits citing financial stringency, he said the present fiscal difficulties were the result of the privatisation efforts made by the 1991-'96 UDF Government. The subsequent LDF Government had done its best to improve KSEB's financial performance, augment its generation capacity and ensure better mix of hydel and thermal power without effecting any steep hike in the tariff. However, over the last one year, the UDF had been engaged in efforts to undo whatever good work the LDF Government had done during its tenure, he said. The UDF, he recalled, had promised to bring down power tariff by 20 per cent and to augment 1,882 MW to the State's generation capacity. Although 16 months had elapsed after the UDF assumed office, it had done little to achieve either of these objectives. What it had done instead was to jack up power tariff and realise huge sums from the consumers on different pretexts to net around Rs. 900 crores and speed up efforts for the Board's privatisation, Mr. Achuthanandan said.
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