The AAP Government’s bonanza for 24,000 power bill defaulters, who the party claimed were part of its Bijli Andolan, is not likely to be materialised as the Kejriwal Government had not made any budgetary provision for it before making a stage-managed exit.
There is no provision for the Rs 6-crore power bill waiver in the Rs 372 crore subsidy that the AAP Government earmarked for discoms to make up for the loss due to 50 per cent tariff reduction for those consuming up to 400 units of power. The BJP and the Congress have alleged that the 24,000 identified beneficiaries are all AAP members and not general public. Officials of power department say that the announcement made by the Kejriwal will be kept on hold after his resignation.
Top sources told The Pioneer that the Arvind Kejriwal Government had not made any provision in the revised Budget to give relief to 24,000 identified power bill defaulters who had participated in his Bijli Paani Andolan in 2012 in the national Capital.
Rewarding those who had participated in the Bijli Paani Andolan against the discoms and refused to pay “inflated” power bills, the Delhi Cabinet headed by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had approved a proposal to give them a 50 per cent relief on their pending Bills and waived 100 per cent penalty on the bills despite strong objections by the finance department which claimed that such a policy would encourage power theft in the city while honest consumers would feel cheated. The Cabinet had also decided to consider the closure of theft cases against power bill defaulters.
Accusing Kejriwal of cheating his supporters, Delhi Congress president Arvinder Singh lovely said: “He (Kejriwal) has befooled people who had participated in the Bijli movement. Actually he was in hurry to make payment of Rs 372 crore to Reliance,” lovely said.