New Delhi

"Power companies fudging records"

Staff Reporter

Discoms have overloaded their salary head to raise revenue gap, says BJP

NEW DELHI: At a time when power distribution companies in the Capital are pleading for an increase in power tariff, the Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party has questioned the justification for the move alleging that not only are these companies fudging their records to show excessive losses, they are also throwing away money by paying as much as Rs. 25.62 lakhs per month to their employees.

The party which has made a detailed presentation before the Chairman of the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission about the financial position and facts of the various distribution and transmission companies in Delhi, has stated that the three distribution companies (discoms) have intentionally overloaded their salary head simply to raise the revenue gap by allowing liberal annual increments and allowances with one of them paying six of its officers Rs. 7.54 crores as salary for nine months and two officers Rs. 4.18 crores for the same period in 2002-03. And a year on, the two officers are being paid Rs. 25.62 lakhs per annum, an increase of Rs. 2.40 lakhs in just one year.

On the issue of the revenue gap (loss) shown by the companies, the BJP said the allowable return for the financial year 2005-06 against the revenue gap of Rs. 585 crores has been shown as Rs. 115 crores by BSES Rajdhani Power Limited (BRPL); while BSES Yamuna Power Limited (BYPL) has shown a revenue gap of Rs. 107 crores as against Rs. 264 crores; and North Delhi Power Limited (NDPL) has shown a revenue gap of Rs. 115 crores as against Rs. 555 crores.

The Delhi BJP leaders, Harsh Vardhan and Vijender Kumar Gupta, said since the share capital of BRPL was Rs. 460 crores, of BYPL it was Rs. 116 crores and of NDPL it was Rs. 368 crores, meaning that they will have a profit of 25 per cent, 92.24 per cent and 31.25 per cent respectively on their share capital.

Stating that this means that the Memorandum of Understanding conditions were apparently drafted keeping the financial interests of the discoms in mind, the BJP said as the increasing trend in tariff will remain, on the basis of accounting of the presumed profit in the revenue gap, there will be an allowable profit of 16 per cent on equity from year to year.

The party also stated that the request of the discoms to allow them to invest their 16 per cent allowable profit towards their equity and share money appears to be a clever move to get further interest benefit of 16 per cent in the invested money pertaining to the allowable profit against prevailing market interest rate which are less than half this percentage level.

Pointing out that as per the terms and conditions of the MoU, the `A&T' (transmission and distribution) losses in the year 2005-06 would have been 40.17 per cent for BYPL, 32.85 per cent for BRPL, and 32.85 per cent for NDPL, it said that A&T losses however have been estimated at 36.70 per cent for BRPL, 45.05 per cent for BYPL and 35.35 per cent for NDPL,

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