In his latest piece Nirupam has indirectly blasted Munde, who also holds the energy portfolio, for rampant financial irregularities in the Maharashtra State Electricity Board and for steep hike in electricity charges declared by the alliance government.

Last week, Nirupam blamed Mahajan for grounding of the multi-crore Tata airlines project and subsequently had to express unconditional apologies following orders of Bal Thackeray after Mahajan took up the issue with the Sena chief.

This time round Nirupam's acrid pen tears apart the MSEB functioning, saying that it was solely due to gross professional mismanagement and a series of irregularities, including the involvement of an agent, thatthe board had to impose the heavy hike in power charges.

``If the process of power generation is same, then why the cost of power generated by MSEB are much higher compared to that of National Thermal Power Corporation. According to my information, cost of power generation per unit of MSEB is between Re one and Rs 1.50, while NTPC produces for 65 paisa only,'' Nirupam argues.

Nirupam goes on to answer why. He cites a specific case where he alleges that the crisis-ridden MSEB has shelled out an aggregate of Rs 21 crore commission and is currently shelling out Rs 87 lakh per month to a ``Nagpur-based coal agent who was once close to senior Congress leader and now closer to a section of the leaders of the ruling alliance. The agent has been given two responsibilities - reach the coal to MSEB power stations and ensure its quality.

Nirupam observes that the MSEB is annually buying an estimated 26 million tonnes coal for power generation. While 15 MT is purchased from the Western Coal Fields, the remainingquantity is procured from South Eastern Coal Fields and Mahanandi Coal Fields, all subsidiaries of the government-run Coal India Limited.

``I feel that the entire coal procurement process is faulty and no steps have been taken to rectify it. When both, the MSEB and WCL are government-run organisations, there is no need of an agent for procurement of coal,'' Nirupam says, objecting to the rationale behind an agent for the official work.

``Since both, MSEB and WCL has sufficient number of officials, why the board should bear annual burden of Rs 21 crore for payment of commission,'' he added. The Shiv Sena MP observes that it is this unnecessary expenditure that common man was paying from his pocket.

It can be recalled that immediately after the alliance government hiked power rates, a high-level delegation led by Sena leader Subhash Desai had called on Munde to lodge a protest against the decision. Munde was specifically told to reconsider its decision as it was adversely affecting small consumers, whoconstitute 90 per cent of the consumers of the MSEB.