Delhi: Ajay Maken alleges Rs 5,000 crore scam in power subsidy, seeks CBI probe

NEW DELHI: Raising questions about the AAP government’s power subsidy scheme in the capital, Congress’ Ajay Maken on Tuesday alleged a scam of Rs 5,000 crore and demanded a CBI investigation.
Maken alleged that finance minister Manish Sisodia had said 90% of the domestic consumers were getting either free or discounted electricity in the capital. “But through the voluntary subsidy scheme, only 38 lakh consumers have registered.This is just 60% of the total domestic consumers. This means at least one-third of the total consumers in whose name the unchecked and unaudited subsidy was given do not even exist,” Maken alleged. “This is a scam of Rs 5,000 crore,” the former power minister claimed. No immediate reaction was available from the AAP government.
Releasing a booklet on the alleged “scam-ridden power model of Delhi” along with Delhi Congress chief Anil Chaudhary, Maken claimed the government had given away Rs 14,731 crore to power distribution companies without getting their accounts audited. Delhi is the only state in the country where “unaudited and unchecked” subsidy was being directly granted to private discoms, he added.
Citing public finance commission reports, he alleged industrial and commercial rates of electricity in Delhi were by far the highest in the country and among the neighbouring states, resulting in a mass exodus of industries from Delhi and massive unemployment. “In 2020-21, the average electricity tariff for industries in Delhi was Rs 13 per unit compared with Rs 6.35 in Uttarakhand, Rs 7.02 in Punjab, Rs 8.14 in Haryana and Rs 9.72 in Rajasthan,” Maken said.
“During the Congress regime from 2009-14, the manufacturing sector grew at a cumulative rate of 11.93% while from 2015 to 2020, with AAP in power, it came down to 0.74%,” he claimed.