Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 27: Lambasting the J&K Govt for disconnecting the power supplies to poor, indigent, BPL masses for failure to pay their nominal bills, former minister Harsh Dev Singh today questioned the non-initiation of action against Ex-Ministers/MLAs owing millions of rupees to the power Department as dues of power consumed by them during the last several years.
He said that the RTI reply received by him had revealed that majority of Ex-Ministers and MLAs who continued to occupy Estates accommodation and ministerial bungalows had neither paid the rent for use of govt accommodation and nor had they paid the bills for power consumed by them which ran in several lakhs in individual cases.
Harsh Dev Singh divulged that the RTI reply stated that VIP Kothi No. 7 was occupied by an Ex-MLA (name not disclosed in RTI) who owed Rs 38,62,852 to the Govt as power dues as on 1st October, 2021. Likewise, it stated that Chander Parkash Ganga owed Rs 2,74,565. The power dues of various other Ex-Ministers/MLAs for the Estates as on 1st October, 2021, GH Lone Rs 306,544 were Bungalow No. 3 Wazarat road occupied by MOS (name not mentioned in RTI reply)-Rs 4,81, 368; Zulfikar Ali former minister Rs 26,51,967; Advisor KK Sharma Kothi No.3-Rs. 4,81,368; VIP Kothi No.8 Ex- MLA (name not given)-Rs 2,89,644; Kavinder Gupta 4-SPL, Ex-Deputy CM-Rs 21,91,223; Sunil Kumar 14-SPL, former minister-Rs 8,38,182; Apni Party office Gandhi Nagar-Rs 1,44,203 and so on.
Singh said that with huge power bills outstanding against these and other Ex-Ministers/MLAs and top bureaucrats, the Govt seemed to have been granted immunity from penal action for power theft in view of power and influence wielded by them. And contrarily the poor and un-influential were being targeted and punished despite their nominal outstandings, Harsh Dev asserted.
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