L-G’s office hits back at CM over discoms
NEW DELHI: The political duel between the lieutenant governor and the AAP government over providing compensation to consumers against unscheduled power cuts intensified on Monday.
Najeeb Jung’s office termed as “incorrect” chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s allegations that the lieutenant governor cancelled the government’s decision to make discoms compensate consumers for unscheduled outages.
Soon after the L-G House issued the statement, the Delhi CM accused Modi of being “hand in glove” with power distribution companies and asking Jung to do what power companies want.
“Modiji is in the pockets of power companies. Power companies are hand in glove with Modi. Modiji asked L-G on phone to do what they (discoms) say,” he tweeted.
Kejriwal accused the PM of trying to implement an increased power tariff in Delhi as in Gujarat. “Cost of 200 units and 400 units of electricity in Delhi is Rs 550 and Rs 1,200, respectively, whereas in Gujarat it is Rs 1,100 and Rs 2,300, respectively.
Now Modiji wants Delhi rates to be equal to Gujarat,” Kejriwal said in another tweet.
Earlier, the L-G office said it had not asked for any specific file and not issued any order following the Delhi High Court order terming the policy decision to compensate consumers for unscheduled power cuts as ‘illegal’ and ‘unconstitutional’.
“Files have been submitted to the office of the Lieutenant-Governor by the GNCTD following the Hon’ble High Court’s order dated 4th August 2016,” it said in a statement.
It said all such files that had come to the L-G office were likely to contain constitutional infirmities. It said it was unfortunate that factually “incorrect and misleading” statements were being placed in the public domain.
The reaction from Jung’s office came a day after Kejriwal said that the L-G cancelled his government’s order to make discoms pay compensation for unscheduled power cuts.
“We had passed an order under which discoms would have to compensate consumers for unscheduled power cuts. They were bound to pay a penalty of Rs 100 for power cuts extending up to one hour. Fifteen days ago, L-G sahab called the file pertaining to this matter and cancelled this order. Modi is hand in glove with the power companies. Why Modiji needed to turn down this order?” Kejriwal said.