Chandigarh Congresssubmitted a memorandum to the Governor of Punjab-cum-Administrator U.T. Chandigarh opposing the decision of the Administration to privatize U.T. Electricity Department

Chandigarh. 22 December 2021
Chandigarh Congress led by its President Subhash Chawla, Abhishek Dutt Coordinator Elections, D D Jindal, Vinod Sharma, Harphool Chander Kalyan, Rajesh Sharma and Rajiv Sharma alongwith 35 party candidates for upcoming municipal corporation elections today submitted a memorandum to the Governor of Punjab-cum-Administrator U.T. Chandigarh opposing the decision of the Administration to privatize U.T. Electricity Department demanding that the decision to transfer the electricity distribution in Chandigarh to a private company along with all the assets of the Electricity Department must be revoked to safeguard public and national interests. While apprehending a big scam into the matter, Chandigarh Congress further demanded a CBI enquiry to unearth all the aspects of the deal.
While speaking on the occasion, Subhash Chawla said, during the process of election campaign, the party candidates had received lot of inputs from the residents about their apprehensions about selling of another profit-making venture Electricity Department by Modi led government. On further investigation, glaring revelations came out that government is arbitrarily following an inconsistent policy for privatizing public companies as per their own whims and fancies so as to benefit a rich corporate. Chandigarh Administration has made a decision to privatize power distribution in Union Territories and transfer the assets of Electricity Department worth thousands of crores to private players for a song. Further, the move to transfer electricity department is aimed at ensuring a windfall profit to the cronies of the BJP and the decision to literally sell Chandigarh Electricity Department is undoubtedly against the public interest and it smacks of high-level corruption.
Chandigarh Electricity Department has been consistently running in profits, having the revenue surplus in last year was Rs. 365.11 Cr, even when its electricity tariff is the lowest in the country. Chandigarh Electricity department has won the best utility award, which is a performance award in the country given by Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC), consistently for the last five years, said Chawla.
It would be unjust and unfair on the part of the Union Government to transfer the distribution network alongwith the assets of the department including real estate worth over thousands of crores to a private company, he stressed.
Once the above said highest bidder takes over, the electricity tariffs in Chandigarh are likely to go up steeply. At present Rs. 2.5 are being charged for first 150 units for the domestic consumers, Rs. 4.5 upto next 250 units and Rs. 5.20 beyond that. This per unit rate is likely to go upto Rs. 10 or even more when the private player takes over.
Further, the private company, who takes over the distribution shall enjoy the assets and real estate of the Chandigarh Electricity Department literally free of cost. They will have the liberty to transfer these assets to third parties also. Such favors to rich private companies at the cost of tax payers’ interests smack of high-level corruption.
The government is arbitrarily following an inconsistent policy for privatizing public companies as per their own whims and fancies. Such as, many government owned petrol pumps are being opened now a days, although the past practice has been to give licenses of petrol pumps to private parties only.
Decision of the Modi Government to sell/transfer profit-making public sector undertakings carved out of tax payers’ money is not only anti-people but also against national and public interests. This act of the administration will result into the injustice to the people of Chandigarh and employees of Chandigarh Electricity Department. The Chandigarh congress demanded a CBI Enquiry into all aspects of this dubious decision, said Chawla.