BJP opposes DERC move to initiate process to hike power tariff

Opposing the move by Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) to hike power tariff, BJP today said the regulator is working in a doubtful manner. 

Delhi BJP chief Vijay Goel alleged that the DERC's move was in collusion with the power discoms. 

He said there was no need for an increase as BJP was convinced that power tariff in Delhi can easily be slashed by 30 per cent. 

"The DERC is working in a doubtful manner to hike power tariff in Delhi. The consultants have been appointed and advertisement has been given for the purpose. The BJP strongly condemns this attempt to hike power tariff. The party is committed to reduction of power tariff by 30 per cent, if elected," Goel said. 

He said BJP has been raising the issue of transparency in tariff setting by DERC and also process of tariff determination. 

"The fact that the consultants appointed by the DERC were also either statutory auditors or were working for one or the other discoms, it constitutes a breach of trust on the part of the DERC. There is clear conflict of interests on part of the consultants," Goel said. 

Questioning the move, he said that DERC seems to be in a hurry to hike tariff while the election was around the corner. 

"Whatever policy decision was to be taken regarding revision of power tariff should be taken by the new government. But, the DERC's action reflects collusion between the regulator, which seems to be acting at the behest of the Congress government and the private discoms," Goel said. 

The BJP had raised the issue in March, when he along with Member of State Advisory Committee of DERC Anil Sood and other experts met the DERC Chairman. 

The DERC Chairman then admitted that the regulator committed mistake in the appointment of the consultants and assured the delegation to rectify the mistake soon, he said, adding but, the advertisement released by the DERC on November 28 and appearing in newspapers shows a totally casual and careless attitude of the DERC. 

"On the one hand the discoms were likely to submit the Aggregate Revenue Requirements (ARR) and on the other, it is extending the date for submission of Request for Proposal by the Consultants. This means the DERC was not at all ready to review the ARR and undertake the exercise of True-Up," he said.

with thanks : Business Standard : LINK

Pics with Dr.Prannoy Roy, NDTV

Strange but True !

No tap water for 25% of Delhiites

NEW DELHI: As Delhi heads for polls, some key issues are agitating the common voter although these may not be felt as much by the city's well-heeled sections. One such issue is water. According to Census 2011, about a quarter of the city's 1.67 crore population does not get treated piped water. That's about 42 lakh people dependent on water tankers, hand pumps, tubewells etc.

Delhi Jal Board (DJB) produces 818 million gallons per day (mgd) of water while the demand is 1,025 mgd. That's a shortfall of more than 20%.

Delhiites who do get water supply are only slightly better off. In most colonies, the supply lasts for 2-3 hours. In summers, it gets worse. According to a survey done by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) last year, out of 111 resident welfare associations that responded to queries, 64 received less than two hours water supply in summer and 59 felt that water was unfit for drinking.

For the past 20 years, Congress and BJP have run the state government and the municipal corporations between them. Yet, they have been unable to deliver this basic entitlement to the people.

A deal was signed in 1994 to deliver water Delhi from three dams to be built in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. After 19 years, the dams are yet to be built. Two of them, Kishau and Renuka, have not even got clearances.

DJB has water treatment plants at six places with a combined capacity of 690 mgd. The CAGfound that at Chandrawal, pumps and flow meters were not working properly, the pond was silted with mud and waste water was leaking all over from 57-year-old sluices and gates. The pumps that push the treated water out were connected to pipes with smaller than optimal diameters, making the pumps less efficient.

Delhi has a very imbalanced and unjust water distribution set up. The CAG report points out that the whole water delivery system is mismanaged, inefficient and weighted in favour of some areas. For instance, the water treatment plant at Nangloi produces 40 mgd for a population of 23.47 lakh. That works out to about 77 litres per day per person.

However, the supply ranged from 3.36 litres per capita per day (lpcd) for 2.5 lakh people in Daulatpur to 225 lpcd for 1.9 lakh people living in Nangloi, according to the CAG report. Some areas in Vikaspuri get just 42 lpcd while others get more than 212 lpcd.

While DJB itself supplies about 128 mgd of groundwater through its network, the population left out of its network depends mostly on groundwater. This has led to a serious crisis of quality. According to the Central Ground Water Board's quality checks, parts of several districts have high nitrate, chloride, fluoride and salinity.

In 2009, 400 million cubic metres (mcm) of groundwater was being drawn out every year while availability was 290 mcm. Twenty blocks spread across the city were 'over-exploited' and five were semi-critical. Water table is falling at the rate of 40 to 100 cm per year.

So, not only is safe water unavailable to a large section of Delhiites, the future looks bleak too. Population is expected to grow while supply cannot keep pace, and groundwater is fast disappearing.

with thanks : Times of India : LINK

Water Front : S A Naqvi ji

"CHECK-UP-WITH-JOY"

Bharatiyam, (registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860) a national level society is seeking assistance for their project "check-up with joy".They are in a need of volunteers to support aged and needy citizens of Delhi who are enrolled for CGHS benefits, but are not able to avail the facilities due to their age related and other inabilities. Volunteers can choose CGHS dispensary/hospital and also a day of their choice for providing support / service to the elderly and needy. Please see the following link.

http://bharatiyam.co/check-up-with-joy.html

Kindly  directly contact Mr.Ahmad Belal, Project Coordinator, BHARATIYAM , Mobile :9718263037

strange but True !

No sewers in 2 out of 5 Delhi homes

Here is a statistic from Census 2011 that will leave you shocked : 40% of Delhi's population - about 67 lakh people - lives in homes that do not have closed drains to take away waste water. In fact, they are not connected to the sewerage system at all. Toilets in these homes are mostly connected to septic tanks, and waste water from bathrooms etc flows into open drains.

Where are these people? Most of them live in the vast northern periphery of Delhi. In North East district, 73% of the population lives in homes with open drains. In North West district, 45% don't have closed drains. In the South district too 40% don't have proper drains. It is only in the central core of Delhi that the situation is somewhat reasonable.

Living near open drains, which probably get clogged and overflow periodically is a severe health hazard that hits quality of life. In 2001, 65% of the urban population of Delhi was covered under sewerage network. This declined to 55% in 2011, according to analysis done by National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB).

There is another side to this dismal story. According to NCRPB, Delhi generates about 4,528 million litres of sewage every day but the sewer network manages to intercept only about 2,280 million litres. The reason is fairly straightforward - the sewer network does not reach about half of Delhi's population. So, the unintercepted sewerage flows straight into water bodies or reaches the Yamuna river through storm water drains.

The 31 sewage treatment plants (STPs) in Delhi, which have a combined capacity of 2,475 million litres of sewage per day, actually treat only 1,589 mld. Between 2001 and 2011, the amount of sewage treated has increased from 1,500 mld to 1,589 mld - just 6%.

The reason why these expensive STPs are lying idle is simple. The sewage just does not reach the plants. A recent report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) pointed out that Delhi Jal Board (DJB) spent Rs 2,715 crore building STPs and sewers. The CAG criticized DJB, saying that increasing capacity of STPs was beyond justification.

In 2008, a new idea was floated. If homes could not be connected to sewers, at least some of the sewage flowing in the storm water drains towards the river could be collected and treated. Called the 'interceptor sewer system', it was hoped that by this means another 31% of Delhi's population would come under sewerage system, though indirectly.

What happened next is typical of Delhi's callousness. Engineers India Limited was appointed to prepare a project, which it did. The report said the project could be finished by September 2010. The government sat on the proposal for three years and it was finally awarded in July 2011 to be completed by 2014. Meanwhile, it turns out that STPs may find it difficult to treat the intercepted sewage during monsoon months as a large amount of rainwater would be mixed with it.

with thanks : Times of India : LINK 

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