Sampat: Power distribution mustn’t go into pvt hands
Yoginder Gupta
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 13
Opposition to the proposed privatisation of the distribution of electricity in Panipat and Gurgaon has come not only from engineers and opposition parties. Even voices of dissent have started emanating from the ruling Congress itself.

The first salvo has been fired by former Power Minister in the INLD government Sampat Singh, who is now a Congress MLA.

Reacting strongly to the Haryana government’s decision in this regard, Sampat Singh today urged Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda to initiate a public debate on the issue before taking the final decision.

He said before privatising the education, health, power, transportation and agriculture sectors, views of experts of these fields should be taken into consideration lest the move might backlash. So far, only the distribution companies had forwarded their views. It would be better if the policy was implemented after a public debate.

Sampat Singh said to run these departments smoothly, the vacant posts should be filled. The number of employees was decreasing, resulting in a reduction in efficiency. The power corporations had 49,000 employees and now their number was only 23,000. Similarly, the number of employees in the roadways had been reduced from 53,000 to 26,000 and in education the number had decreased from 1,25,000 to 73,000.

Appealing to the Chief Minister to stop the process of granting franchisee of power distribution in Gurgaon and Panipat, Sampat Singh said such experiments had miserably failed in Bhiwandi and Nagpur in Maharashtra, and Kanpur and Agra in UP. For two years the private companies earned a lot and later fled, leaving the work in the lurch.

He said it was a violation of Sections 12 and 262 of the Electricity Act, 2003, which clearly stated that power distribution franchisees must involve the local people and power distribution corporation might allot such petty work as preparation of electricity bill, collection of amount and installing power meters to local people. The arguments in favour of power distribution to private agency such as stopping of power theft, increasing efficiency, qualitative power distribution and recovery of balanced amount were baseless.

he two power distribution corporations in Haryana had more than 35 per cent losses in expansion, distribution and transmission. As per the Union Government’s prescription, Gurgaon and Panipat had less than 15 per cent losses and bill recovery varied from 97 per cent to 119 per cent. Hence, there was no justification in handing over the power distribution to private parties.

He said he was not against privatisation as it was the need of hour. The construction of roads and bridges by private companies had led to qualitative and speedy services to the people. But in a democracy, social services must remain with the government.