Congress opposes privatisation of Chandigarh electricity department

Chandigarh Congress on Wednesday submitted a memorandum to the UT administrator opposing the decision to privatise the electricity department

Chandigarh Congress on Wednesday submitted a memorandum to the UT administrator opposing the decision of the administration to privatise the electricity department.

The memorandum opposing the privatisation of the electricity department was submitted by Chandigarh Congress chief Subhash Chawla along with party candidates from all MC wards. (HT)

The memorandum was submitted by the party’s city chief, Subhash Chawla, along with party candidates from all MC wards. They demanded that the decision to transfer the electricity distribution in Chandigarh to a private company, along with all assets of the electricity department, must be revoked to safeguard public and national interests.

The party also demanded a CBI enquiry to unearth all aspects of the deal. Chawla said that during the process of election campaign, the party candidates received a lot of input from the residents about their apprehensions about another profit-making venture being sold off by the Modi-led government. “On further investigation, glaring revelations came out that the government is arbitrarily following an inconsistent policy to privatise public companies as per their own whims and fancies, so as to benefit corporate entities,” he said.

Chawla also said that Chandigarh electricity department has been consistently running in profits and last year, its revenue surplus was ₹365.11 crore, even when its power tariff is the lowest in the country. “The department has won the best utility award consistently for the last five years, which is a performance award given by the joint electricity regulatory commission (JERC),” he said.