The BJP on Saturday accused Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit of “befooling” the people of Delhi on issues related to power bills.
BJP MP Vijay Goel alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party government had hiked fixed charges leading to a 30% rise in electricity prices and demanded that it return ₹7,000 crore to consumers collected from these “high fixed charges”.
“If a government hikes the electricity and power prices, it may be out of compulsion, but if the government fools its own people then that government could only be Kejriwal’s,” Mr. Goel alleged at a press conference here which he addressed along with RWA Joint Front convener B.S. Vohra, URD general secretary Saurabh Gandhi and Anil Sood from ‘Chetna’.
“Mr. Kejriwal himself released a chart, comparing the electricity bills in his tenure vis-à-vis Sheila ji’s tenure, and said that had Sheila Dikshit been in power, the electricity prices would have shot up by 73% every three years. This is a cruel joke because the fact is barring the slab of 1 KW, electricity prices have gone up in all the remaining slabs,” Mr. Goel alleged.
The former Union Minister further said that the 1 KW slab was “not significant enough” because this slab was not “used even in slums where people have television, fans, cooler, and heaters”.
Mr. Goel argued further that the Delhi Chief Minister had sought to argue that Ms. Dikshit been in power, the public would have suffered immensely but, he alleged, his own government had hiked fixed charges which led to “high electricity bills”.
“Electricity bills show the fixed charges has shot up by 30% in the three year period of 2016-2019. Earlier, people were charged ₹600/KW as the security deposit, but today ₹900/KW is being charged which is an increase of 50%. Similarly, in the case of 5 KW or more, people are paying deposits of ₹1,200 which was ₹600 earlier,” he claimed.
‘Return ₹7,000 crore’
“The ₹7,000 crore, that the Kejriwal government has collected by hiking fixed charges, should be returned to the people of Delhi…Even after being in power for past four and a half years, Chief Minister Kejriwal is still to act upon on his electoral promises of setting up Delhi’s own power station to meet peak power demand, promises to revive the Rajghat power plant, introducing competition among discoms and turning Delhi into the solar city, all remain unfulfilled,” he added.
