Nagpur.
Energy minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Sunday announced the constitution of a committee to inquire into the working of power distribution franchisee SNDL. The committee will be constituted within 15 days and will be headed by a retired high court judge, said the minister.
Bawankule was speaking to the media after chairing a review meeting on the working of SNDL, the franchisee for Gandhibag, Civil Lines and Mahal divisions, at Vidyut Bhavan on Katol Road. The committee will look probe whether the SNDL has violated the agreement to procure the power franchisee. Apart from this, the committee will also look into the customer service provided by the company and the various complaints against it, said Bawankule.
Earlier in the meeting, people’s representatives raised questions about the working pattern of SNDL. Mayor Pravin Datke said that during the time of MSEDCL, electricity was provided at concessional rates to gardens. But the SNDL charges commercial rates for the same.
President of Nagpur unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Krishna Khopde praised SNDL for its good work done in the outskirts of the city, even as he raised the issue of higher electric bills being handed out to customers. Taking forward the same issue, MLA Sudhakar Deshmukh said that the electric meters of SNDL were found to be running fast. Deshmukh corroborated this charge by saying that the meters were checked at VNIT lab, where the meters were found to be running faster than usual.
MLA Milind Mane said that due to high rates of power, the industries in the region are suffering. He suggested installation of parallel meters to check the discrepancies, if any. MLA Vikas Kumbhare raised the issue of 376 contract employees of SNDL who were recently remove d from service by SNDL. Bawankule ordered that these employees should be immediately taken back in to service.
Prominently present in the meeting were chief engineer Mohan Zode, superintending engineer Arvind Bhadikar and Suresh Madavi, business head of SNDL Sonal Khurana and leader of the ruling party in Nagpur Municipal Corporation Dayashankar Tiwari.
