the goan I network
PANAJI
The electricity department is spending a total yearly amount of Rs 205 crores on its employees, according to the tariff report put out by the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC) on Monday.
Under the section entitled “Enormous increase in employee expenses in the True-up year”, the report states that Rs 205 crore is spent on the same, a good Rs 50 crore over the true-up or estimated amount to be spent on employees of the department.
The estimated cost for the same, set in the financial year 2014-15, is Rs 152.42 crore. Even though the estimated cost for the same for the financial year 2017-18 should have been calculated by the Electricity Department and been ready to present in the tariff report put out on Monday, the same was not done by the department. Due to this non-compliance, the same could not be put out, and only available estimates are of 2014-15, according to the tariff report.
A stakeholder, whose comment is mentioned in the report, said, “The JERC Tariff Order for 2014-15 clearly says that the employee costs are high and need to be decreased.” They have however risen by 35%. The department has justified this by saying, “The increase in the employee expenses is due to increase in the number of employees recruited during 2014-15. Further, there has also been actual increase in employee salaries on account of Dearness Allowance (DA), HRA and travel allowance which is uncontrollable.”
The projected employee cost is set to go upto Rs 417.31 by the financial year 2020-21.
The JERC further notes that over the years, the Commission has issued various directives to the Electricity Department for necessary action at its end. The JERC has observed that the Department is not fully complying with many of the directives issued by the Commission.
In order to strengthen the effective monitoring and ensure timely implementation of all the directives in true spirit, the Commission directed the Department to submit: The detailed action plan for compliance of all the directives within one month starting May 20. The quarterly progress report as per the detailed action plan for all the directives issued in the subsequent sections within 10 days of the end of each quarter of the calendar year. The Commission has taken a serious note of the non-compliance, and has directed the Department to submit the true-up (estimated) petition along with the audited accounts for 2015-16 within two months of issuance of the order in question (May 20) and from 2016-17 onwards by 30 November, 2019.
