Conspiracy to force CAG to drop discoms audit

The latest letter by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) to the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi has exposed the conspiracy hatched to prevent the frauds committed by private power distribution companies from being made public.

The ongoing CAG audit has made the discoms extremely nervous and after all their desperate attempts to stall their account books from being scrutinised have failed, they have hatched a conspiracy with active help from the BJP and the Congress to delay the audit and frustrate the CAG.

It is extremely shocking that the top CAG officials have been forced to remind the LG and the Delhi administration run by him about their duty to ensure that it is mandatory for the discoms to provide all their account books to the auditors.

The manner in which the discoms are hiding their account books and other related data with active connivance from top Delhi administration, is a clear and incriminating evidence about the attempts being made to force the CAG to drop this important audit.

Already the audit process has been delayed for more than six months and on the other hand, the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC), is set to announce a steep hike in the electricity tariffs anytime now.

This injustice being imposed on the people of Delhi will not be tolerated any further.

The Aam Aadmi Party is of the firm view that there is no justification to delay the CAG audit and till the time this process is going on, any decision to hike the electricity tariff is nothing short cheating the people residing in the national capital.

First the people were given false excuses by the then Shiela Dikshit’s Congress government for a decade that accounts of discoms cannot be audited since they are privately controlled and later, a further falsehood of discoms having obtained a stay from the court was floated.

The AAP government called this bluff within 48 hours of coming to office and asked the CAG to find out about the frauds committed by these discoms.

Now, it has been nearly six weeks since Narendra Modi’s BJP government is controlling Delhi administration. The silence of BJP on the CAG audit and power tariff hike is baffling.

Nobody expects the Congress which systematically allowed the discoms to raise electricity tariffs for a decade and loot the people of Delhi, to now support the CAG audit, to now support this scrutiny.

The BJP, which promised a 30% reduction in electricity tariffs needs to break its silence on the fraud being committed on the people.

The people of Delhi are eagerly awaiting the views of union power minister Mr Piyush Goyal on the social media platforms on this subject.

The AAP demands that the central government should direct the Delhi administration to warn the discoms that their attempts to scuttle the CAG audit will result in cancellation of their licences.

The AAP will lead an unprecedented protest in the national capital in case the DERC goes ahead with its plan to raise the electricity tariffs without waiting for the findings of the CAG audit.