Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) Managing Director Anurag Aggarwal on Monday clarified that the State Government was not privatising the Nigam and it had only agreed in principle to hand over the electricity distribution to the franchisee.
Talking to media persons at Gurgaon, he said it was a type of power distribution management contract for five to seven years and the assets of the Nigam were not being sold away.
He further asserted that the franchisee system was being adopted to ensure consumer satisfaction by providing better power supply to them. The modalities for adopting this system were yet to be finalized and before doing so opinion and views of all stake holders including Resident Welfare Associations, Industrial Associations, officers and employees of DHBVN would be considered.
Mr. Aggarwal stated that while finalising the power distribution management contract with the franchisee every care would be taken to protect the interests of the consumers, employees and the financial health of the DHBVN. Till now even the area which was to be handed over to the franchisee had not been identified and even the “franchisee was not known.”
He further said that even after the implementation of the franchisee system, no retrenchment of any employee would be done and the employees as well as officers of DHBVN would get an opportunity to work with the franchisee. The customer would be governed by the tariff applicable in whole of the state and the franchisee would not be allowed to charge more from the consumers in its area.
Meanwhile, an official spokesman here appealed to all sections of society to rise above self-seeking, narrow and vested interests and support the Government’s initiatives aimed at giving good quality and adequate power to the people.
He also clarified that the announcement regarding distribution franchisees in Gurgaon and Panipat only marked the initiation of the process of study, consultations and debate before actually inviting bids for the purpose.
Along with creation of additional generation capacity of 5,000 MW, strengthening the transmission and distribution system in Haryana was part of the comprehensive vision of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. “New generating plants have no meaning if consumers do not get better power supply. The experiment with franchising of distribution in the two towns is proposed on a pilot basis and will beundertaken keeping the interests of consumers, power utilities and the State in mind,’’ he added.
He further said that contrary to misplaced observations, the experiment does not imply privatisation of assets of the power distribution utilities or any retrenchment of employees.
