NEW DELHI, April 16: In dusty, sleepy Mukundpur Colony, and several alike areas of Delhi, the Delhi Vidyut Board has taken its first small, tentative step towards privatisation. But it isn't going all the way, just now. Only far enough to allow businessmen like Naresh Kumar Jain take the burden of implementing the single-point electricity scheme.There were no tenders and no notices, however. ``There was no need. It's on a first come first basis,'' says DVB chairman Virender Singh, explaining how Jain, owner of BPL Electricals, has been allowed to bag contracts for at least 15 colonies in north-west Delhi so far, and 15 more in the future. ``But others from other area slowly coming forward,'' quickly adds Singh, without getting into specifics.But no one else in north-west Delhi, says Jain, a businessman with a plush office in Karol Bagh: ``I am the only one who responded to the scheme immediately and took the risk, like any other business proposition. Now I plan to bring electricity to at least 50,000 homes within six months. No one else has planned anything on this scale.''Until Jain came to Mukundpur Colony, the 1,800 odd families didn't pay for the electricity they used. They say the DVB has never bothered for the past 13 years since the colony came up; the DVB says they never got a chance to bother because the residents did not pay development charges.Jain says he has changed it all. He has struck a deal with the DVB to take electricity to jhuggis and unauthorised collonies in Mukundpur, Mangolpuri, Jahangirpuri and just about anywhere he sets his eyes on. He has installed meters, wires and poles and will collect bills and maintain the equipment. He will also ensure that the residents pay their development charges to the DVB, a long-pending revenue of lakhs of rupees, before he gives them electricity.In the bargain, Jain will get Rs 1,000 as application fees from each consumer. And the DVB will give him 15 per cent of the billing as commission, ``enough to pay the employees, maintain the electrical network and make a good profit''.But why just Jain, when Power Minister Narendra Nath recently said that only residents, village pradhans or heads of associations of a particular area are supposed to be given the franchisee?The DVB says: ``He has accepted our terms and conditions, he has the money to invest. We have agreed on a two-year contract, which is renewable.'' Jain says: ``Most of the Congress MLAs from north-west Delhi like Zile Singh Chauhan, Surinder Kumar and Ramesh Kumar (ex-MP Sajjan Kumar' brother) want me. So do the DVB. And I am not new to this line. I own six factories in and around Delhi, where we manufacture electric fans.''And there is more, a dose of nostalgia, which he uses often in bureaucratic circles. ``I have always been among the first to take up new ventures in Delhi. When Maruti set up shop in India, I was the first from Delhi to get a dealership. In 1975, I got the first Maruti car. Sanjay Gandhi used to correspond directly with me in this regard,'' he says displaying an old, yellowing written correspondence, signed by Sanjay Gandhi, which he proudly attaches along with his resume.So now the single-point electricity scheme, though it hasn't been easy on him so far. ``First, I had to convince the DVB that I could do their job. Then the residents of the unauthorised colonies and jhuggi clusters and the middle men. Every day, I have to sit with them to explain the scheme and what I am doing there, instead of the DVB.''According to the agreement he has signed with the DVB, the latter will supply power up to to a single point and install a 90 kilo watt capacity meter. Jain will have to deposit Rs 75,000 with the DVB for each such meter and pay them for the power consumption in then colonies.But the DVB will not be involved in reading individual meters and posting bills. The responsibility is with Jain. And he has already hired people for the job. ``We will do everything on computers. We will post the bills door to door and collect the money door to door.''So far, he has convinced 1,500 people in Mukundpur and other areas to join him and the scheme. But many others like Ram Avtar are yet to decide. ``When the DVB have failed all these years, how will this man succeed,'' says Ram Avtar. ``In 1997, the DVB asked us to pay development charges if we wanted electricity. The arithmetic then was Rs 65 per sq. yard of the consumer's plot of land. Now it's Rs 95 per sq. yard.''Ram Avtar owns 65 sq. yards of land and paid Rs 1,369 as the first installment in August 1997. He was supposed to pay the rest in three installments. But he didn't, because the DVB even install a meter. Then one day they sent him a bill ``out of nowhere''. Avtar didn't pay and has been tapping electricity from the colony transformer as long as he remembers.Jagmal Singh Yadav, Devaki Nandan Sharma and Shravan Kumar Yadav have similar stories and the same questions. They want to know why Jain is asking for Rs 1,000 as application fees, when the application form states it is Rs 850. Or why he insists that they pay their development charges. And whether he will guarantee uninterrupted power supply.And Jain says he has the answers: Rs 1,000 for the meter, wires, wooden poles and the labour costs. He wants them to pay the development charges, because he has promised the DVB that he would get the revenue. And he guarantees that he will be around for the next five years at least - as long as the Congress is in power.
