An affidavit was submitted in the high court on behalf of the Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited (UPCL) managing director in a public interest litigation challenging cheap electricity to departmental officials and hike in power tariffs for the common citizens.

It was stated in the affidavit that following the court orders, meters had been installed by some of the employees. Objecting to this, the petitioner’s counsel said that as electricity meters had been installed in the homes of only some employees, the MD had not followed the court orders as the employees had been paid their salary for the month of November.

Considering this, the division bench of chief justice Ramesh Ranganathan and justice Alok Kumar Verma has directed the UPCL to clear the status on Tuesday. During the last date of hearing on the PIL, the power corporation MD had told the court that meters would be installed in the homes of all employees within a month. Acknowledging anomalies in the departmental works, it had also been stated that these would be inquired into within a month.  According to the case details, Dehradun based RTI Club had filed a PIL in the high court stating that the government is charging Rs 400 to Rs 500 per month for electricity from electricity department officers and Rs 100 per month from other departmental employees whereas the total amount payable for the power consumed is considerably higher. This results in the burden falling on the general public. The petitioner had stated that electricity meters are not even installed in the homes of various officials and where installed, they are not functioning properly. The petitioner had stated that the corporation’s general manager’s power bill for 25 months was Rs 4.20 lakh but the meter reading was not noted from 2005 to 2016.

 In addition to the serving employees of the corporation, even the retired employees and their dependents are being provided electricity almost free which directly increases the financial burden transferred to the general public, the petitioner had contended.

It was also stated in the PIL that the corporation had long ago collected the rent for the domestic electricity meters. Despite this, the rent is still added to the monthly bill which is wrong as the customer has also paid the full amount of rent.