PANJIM: Goa’s Power Minister Milind Naik, in a desperate attempt to divert the issue of him deliberately delaying power sanctions to industry, has claimed that the Investment Promotion Board (IPB), the big daddy of project clearance, was not taking him on board before clearing project. That claim has turned out to be absolutely false.
At a press conference, Naik blamed IPB for non-inclusion of Electricity Department officials before giving approvals for any new projects or for expansion of existing projects.
However, Herald has learnt that the Power Minister either has no clue as to how his department works, or is deliberately acting ignorant. All load sanction approval files pending with the Electricity Department are put for approval only after a feasibility study is carried out by the concerned division of his very own department.
“The feasibility report is attached with every load sanction approval file,” said a top official of the Electricity Department not wanting to be named. This itself makes it explicit that the Power Department’s concurrence is taken on each and every file. Any further delay post that approval is purely due to the Power Minister refusing to clear the projects for reasons best known to him and those who are forced to deal with him.
However, the contents of the file seem to be of least interest to the Power Minister who has set its own criteria for load sanction. “The Power Minister is therefore trying to suppress the facts by blaming the IPB,” says the official.
Further, the official questioned, if there were technical constraints in according load sanction to companies, how was it that long pending files of four companies in Verna were cleared immediately after the personal intervention of the Chief Minister after the last IPB meeting.
“Also, going as per the statement of the Power Minister, if it was not possible to release the load to the industrial consumers, why is that the load approval files are kept pending by the department for months and not returned back. The reason is that the files are complete in all respect and with the feasibility study carried, there is no reason with the Power Department to return these files. Even files with load as small as 70 KVA are kept pending for no valid reasons,” he said.
When Herald called Chief Electrical Engineer Dipak Bhajekar for his comments on the issue, he first listened to the question on load approvals and realising that he had no ready answer said, “Today is my holiday and I am with my family for a movie. Please call me later.”
He later called back and toed the minister’s line saying IPB does not take the Power Department into consideration. “Right now there is no file of IPB pending with us, let me just check and get back to you tomorrow. I can’t say anything now,” he said.
As reported earlier, holding back of files is also in blatant violation of guidelines in Goa (Right of Citizens to Time Bound Delivery of Public Services) Bill, 2013. The bill had also defined time limit to the CM, Ministers, Speaker and Deputy Speaker maximum to 30 days after being cleared by the head of the department.
As per the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission’s (Electricity Supply Code) Regulations, supply of electricity to premises has to be given within one month after receipt of application and on payment of requisite charges.
