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EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE
MUMBAI, Oct 3: Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde who also holds the Energy portfolio has put himself in an open confrontation with Sena supremo Bal Thackeray by saying that his unilateral and sudden announcement of providing free power to farmers is improper and impracticable given the budgetary constraints prevailing in the State.
In fact, Munde's statement in a subtle way gives credence to the ongoing controversy over the poor financial health of the State between the two alliance partners. Chief Minister Manohar Joshi has time and again denied such a state of affairs while the BJP has made no effort to hide the fact.Thackeray's populist announcement has obviously not gone down well with BJP but since Chief Minister Manohar Joshi said last night that the State Government would provide Rs 832 crore to the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) to implement Thackeray's announcement, Munde in his capacity as Energy Minister, has submitted three none-too-appetising options to the Chief Minister toprovide free power to 24 lakh farmers.
Accordingly, the State Government will have to either resort to a mass hike in power tariff, or grant an aid of Rs 650 crore to the MSEB, or impose a drastic cut on the planned expenditure to meet the additional burden.Putting a word of caution Munde maintained that it would be improper to impose a fresh burden on consumers at this juncture, as the government had already hiked the power tariff last month for generating an additional revenue to the tune of Rs 900 crore.
``I have submitted these three options to Joshi for his final decision,'' Munde said, but made it clear that free electricity would not be provided to farmers unless MSEB received a matching compensation from the State Government.
Referring to the dwindling budgetary support to MSEB, Munde said while the State could not provide Rs 200 crore for 1998-99 to the MSEB, ``from where would they give Rs 650 crore, the amount supposed to be the annual billing to farmers.'' In 1997-98 the State had allocatedRs 450 crore to MSEB towards subsidies and assistance as against Rs 1,400 crore in 1994-95, he said. When asked whether he supported the waiver of bills as an Energy Minister, Munde said, ``there is no question of my opposing or supporting the issue as it was a directive from the Sena chief.''
``It needs courage to take such bold decisions benefitting masses'', he said when asked whether it was feasible to take such a decision when the State was facing financial crisis.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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