Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Dec 24: The Ministers, legislators and Engineers including those posted in Power Development Department (PDD) and Power Development Corporation (PDC), who have been crying hoarse over the people for not mentioning their actual loads of electricity causing losses to the PDD, have themselves shown far less load than actual in their houses.
The information has been provided in an official document of the PDD, which was tipped to suffer losses worth over Rs 2000 crore during current year due to widening gap between power purchase bill and revenue realized from the consumers.
Sources wondered that if those at the helm of affairs including the Ministers, legislators and Engineers were involved in power theft by showing less load than actual, how can they blame the common man for following the similar practices and conducting raids at their houses and other establishments.
During current financial year of 2012-13, the PDD was expected to incur around Rs 3300 crore on power purchase while its revenue could be around Rs 1300 crore, a net loss of Rs 2000 crore to the State exchequer. Worthwhile to mention here that transmission losses of the State have crossed 65 per cent. The State had been granted special power reforms grant worth Rs 1300 crore each for three years during 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09 by the Central Government but it was stopped thereafter.
The document revealed that Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s connection stands in the name of his father Dr Farooq Abdullah, the Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy. The sanction load at the house has been shown as 15 KV as against actual load of 25 KV. Omar holds the charge of Power Department.
Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad, a former Chief Minister of J&K, who was instrumental in securing special power reforms grant during his regime for three years, had sanctioned load of 3 KV against actual load of 5 KV at his house.
PHE, Irrigation and Flood Control Minister Taj Mohi-ud-Din, who has been asking the people to pay bills for water connections, has sanctioned loaded of just .5 KV as against actual load of 3 KV at his Uri residence. According to sources, .5 KV load was released only for one room house or `jhuggies’.
Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather, who had also repeatedly been asking the PDD to raise the revenue bill, has sanctioned load of 2 KV as against actual load of 3 KV while Industries and Commerce Minister Surjit Singh Slathia also had sanctioned load of 5 KV as against actual load of 7 KV. Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ali Mohammad Sagar had 1 KV sanctioned load as against actual load of 5 KV. With just 1 KV load, the document showed that Mr Sagar was using two air conditioners.
CM’s Advisor Mubarak Gul has 1.5 KV sanction load but was using 2.5 KV load while Political Advisor Devender Singh Rana has 3 KV sanction load as against actual load of 5 KV.
Minister of State for Works Javed Dar has 3 KV sanctioned load as against 6 KV actual load. Similar are the load figured of NC’s Rajya Sabha member Mohammad Shaffi Uri.
The official document didn’t mention actual loaded of various Ministers including Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand, Sakina Itoo (Social Welfare), Peerzada Mohammad Sayeed (Education), Ghulam Hassan Mir (Agriculture), RS Chib (Medical Education ), Aga Syed Ruhalla (Animal Husbandry), Abdul Gani Malik (Higher Education), Qamar Ali Akhoon (CAPD and Transport), Tourism Minister Rigjin Jora, MoS Aijaz Ahmad Khan and some MLAs while giving only their sanctioned load.
“This could have been done deliberately as the Ministers might have very high actual load as compared to sanctioned load’’, sources said.
Some of the MLAs of opposition didn’t lag behind in enjoying the privilege of burning electricity much more than the sanctioned load. BJP MLA from Nagrota, Jugal Kishore, who has recently been elected as State party chief, has 1 KV sanctioned load as against actual load of 5 KV at his VIP-14 residence. Similar is the case of City East MLA Ashok Khajuria, whose load has also been shown as 1 KV as against 5 KV actual at his VIP-11 residence.
Another opposition MLA Balwant Singh Mankotia has 1 KV sanctioned load as against actual load of 5 KV. BJP rebel MLA Bharat Bushan from Nagrota has sanctioned load of 1 KV as against actual load of 4 KV. Another BJP rebel Jagdish Sapolia has 1.5 KV sanctioned load against 5 KV actual load. At one of the building PDP MLA Moulvi Iftikhar Hussain Ansari was shown to have sanctioned load of 14 KV as against actual load of 21.37 KV.
Congress MP Madan Lal Sharma’s sanctioned loaded has been shown as .5 KV while his actual load has not been mentioned in the document. Congress MLC Subash Chander Gupta had 16 KV actual load but got only 10 KV sanctioned load.
However, PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti has same 2 KV sanctioned and actual load at her Nowgam residence.
The Ministers and the legislators are not the only exceptions. A number of Engineers including those posted in PDD and PDC also have less sanctioned load than the actual load.
M Malik Vilayat, Incharge Chief Engineer, PDC has 10 KV sanctioned load as against 12 KV actual load. Mohammad Ahmad Mattoo, Chief Engineer, EM&RE Kashmir has 8 KV actual load but only 5 KV sanctioned load. Surprisingly, PDD Executive Engineer Wali Mohammad Mir has only .5 KV sanctioned load.
SE Sandhiya Khajuria has sanctioned load of 3 KV as against actual load of 4.5 KV while Executive Engineer Devinder Singh has 6 KV sanctioned load against actual load of 8 KV. Dalip Cheroo, Executive Engineer has 9 KV sanctioned load against 13 KV actual load.
Rahila Wani, X-En, Ashwani Gupta, SE, Parveen Gupta, X-En, B Kundal, X-En, Arshana Gupta, X-En, Rajan Gupta, X-En, Surjeet Gupta, X-En and Som Raj, SE also have sanctioned load less than the actual load, the document revealed.
Follow our WhatsApp channel