(1888PressRelease)
September 04, 2007 - At a meeting here on Thursday, political leaders strongly criticised the privatisation of the power distribution network in the Capital five years ago. The meeting was attended by residents' welfare associations, activists, power engineers, trade union members and legal experts where the participants described the Delhi privatisation model as a "total failure".
"The all-party meeting was an attempt to evaluate the views of all stakeholders of Delhi and see if we agree on the results of the five years of privatisation. Nobody expressed any satisfaction at all," said Sanjay Kaul of People's Action who conducted the meeting."Three proposals were put to the floor and all of these were passed unanimously," he said.
Delhi BJP president Harsh Vardhan accused the Chief Minister of ignoring the consumer interests in almost all issues like poor service, faulty billing, fast running meters or power cuts.
Communist Party of India general secretary A. B. Bardhan praised the RWAs for having taken the fight to the streets and demanded review of privatisation process describing the Electricity Act, 2003 as fundamentally flawed. Congress MLA S.C. Vats said that the Electricity Act, 2003, must be reviewed.
The meeting ended with an agreement to put pressure on the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission to review the performance of the past five years through an independent audit and force the Government through agitation to order a CBI probe into the entire deal.
