BJP activists gherao Tata Power office over power cuts, alleged cheating through bill cycle

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) activists on Monday intensified the ongoing agitation against massive irregularities by Tata Power in billing its consumers in a 40-day cycle instead of monthly.

Alleging massive corruption, the BJP activists gheraoed the Tata Power office in Bhubaneswar.  A scuffle broke out after the saffron party activists tried to lock the main gate of the power distribution company.

The BJP alleged that the Tata Power is now collecting electricity bill from consumers on a 40-day billing cycle period. As a result, the consumers are being charged at higher slab rates for the 10 extra days, which could have been charged at much lesser rates in the next monthly bill.

“Earlier, there was a corruption of Rs 20000 crore in the name of strengthening power infrastructure and now crores of rupees are being looted by the company through the new billing system. We have locked the office till the corruption is exposed,” said Bhubaneswar district president, Babu Singh.

Earlier, the Bhubaneswar district unit of BJP had demanded a CBI probe into the claims of investment of over Rs 20,000 crore to strengthen power infrastructure in Odisha.

Another BJP leader Dilip Mohanty said, “Odisha earlier claimed that it is power surplus state and Rs 20000 crore was spent for development of electricity infrastructure. Now it is known that there was no power during peak summer months. Every month the state government is cheating crores of rupees through Tata Company.”