Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Friday blamed the feud in the Ambani family for the capital's power crisis and non-cooperative attitude of neighbouring states for the water problem in the city.
Dikshit, whose government has been under attack over power problems, said Congress President Sonia Gandhi had asked her to correct the situation.
"The power situation in Delhi has improved enormously after privatisation three years ago, but not to the satisfaction of the consumers," she told a 'Meet the Press' programme in Delhi during which she spoke on several other issues like transport, statehood demand, problem of multiplicity of authority, the capital's security problem.
Referring to the numerous complaints on account of power during the past several months, she said "one of the two (distributing) companies (BSES) belong to a particular industrial house (Reliance) that was going through a lot of problems in the last one year. This affected their functioning.
"The government waited patiently. The consumer suffered. We are very sorry for that," she said but did not name the Ambanis.
Dikshit said the assistant general manager of Reliance Energy headed by Anil Ambani was called for a meeting by the Delhi government on Thursday and was told in no uncertain terms that the grievances of the consumers, especially that of fast-running meters, be solved.
On complaints about power metres, Dikshit said the Reliance Energy has been instructed to give the choice to consumers about changing these and that the contractors employed by it should not be allowed to "terrorise" people on this count.
Maintaining that 'lack of understanding" between the consumers and the provider as a major problem in the functioning of BSES, she said the company has given the assurance that an action plan for improving its consumer redressal mechanism will be worked out in the next four to five days.
On water, Dikshit said her government has realised that Delhi is not going to be get unlimited water supply from the other states.
Apparently referring to the dilly-dallying by Uttar Pradesh on giving water to Delhi, she said there was a lot of "non-understanding and reluctance to share water with Delhi" on the part of the neighbouring states.
"In spite of all this, the water supply in Delhi is the best in the country," the chief minister claimed. Reassuring that there were no plans of privatising water supply in Delhi, she said her government simply wanted to employ the best experts and knowledge to improve water management.
"Securing World Bank funds does not mean privatisation of water," she said.
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