GM rescued by police amidst BJP workers shutting doors to prevent him from leaving
@hepzia
Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) general manager Surendrakumar Bagde was on July 23 gheraoed at his office for over five hours by members of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demanding rollback on high power bills issued by the BEST’s electricity division to its consumers. A delegation of the BJP including its Mumbai city chief Mangal Prabhat Lodha, senior BEST committee member Sunil Ganacharya accompanied by many BJP corporators stayed put at the BEST headquarters office of the GM, encircled him and insisted on him rolling back the huge electricity bills served to BEST electricity consumers.
Lodha also demanded that the BEST withdraw its disconnection notices issued to many consumers, who had failed to pay up the high bills. However, the drama ended inconclusively after Bagde was whisked away by police, amidst BJP workers sloganeering and closing the door to prevent him from leaving.
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While the video of Bagde being sneaking out of his office was circulated on twitter, the Twitterati questioned how the BJP did not bother to raise similar issue of high power bills being levied by the other power suppliers in the city like Adani and Tata Power and chose to selectively protest only against the BEST, which is being controlled by its bete noire, the Shiv Sena. Incidentally, the agitation took place a day after Bagde met Shiv Sena’s member of Parliament Arvind Sawant and Energy minister Nitin Raut following the opposition parties in BMC seeking no-confidence motion against him on the electricity bills issue.
Though Bagde refused to make a statement either to the protestors or to the media, the BEST’s public relations officer shared a document explaining how during the lockdown period (April, May, June) meter reading was stopped and consumers were issued bills based on estimated units. The BEST explained that they started meter reading from June as the lockdown eased and thereafter from July, they had charged consumers with actual consumption basis along with adjustment dues of power utilised but unpaid over the past three months. The timing of the bills coming during economic disruption and joblessness caused by Covid-19, has distressed many.
The steep rise in electricity bills, that saw many celebrities also complaining on twitter about it, has refused to come down. While the power utilities have agreed to let consumers pay in installments, the fact that these companies are refusing to scale down the inflated power bills, has not been lost on many.
Many citizens groups like the Watchdog Foundation and the Bombay East Indian Association have urged people to protest by burning all old electricity bills at their homes, society compound, localities on August 15 at 6 pm.
