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Why One Of India’s Biggest EB Donors Is A Touchy Topic In Bhiwandi

Torrent Power supplies power to Bhiwandi near Mumbai, and powerloom owners allege that power bills have doubled or tripled since the franchise was brought in, which has dealt a blow to the Rs 10,000 crore powerloom industry here.

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Bhiwandi Powerloom owner

Prabhakar Ahluwalia, a powerloom owner in Bhiwandi, says one of the reasons the industry has suffered over the years is the high power bills of Torrent Power, a charge the company denies | Photo courtesy: Tanvi Deshpande, IndiaSpend

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It is just another summer day in the dimly lit, sweltering powerloom unit belonging to 52-year-old Prabhakar Aluwala in Bhiwandi. Two labourers wearing vests move swiftly from one loom to the next to make the necessary turns to keep the yarn spinning without getting disturbed and ruining the design. They are manufacturing the grey cotton used for making sarees, as part of an earlier contract. The labourers don’t have time to pose for pictures. There is hardly any room to take any in the unit anyway; in that cramped space, not being careful can lead to injury of the kind one saw in old Hindi movies based on Mumbai’s working class.

The unit is working at half capacity as the market is slow right now. While ups and downs have always been part of the business, Aluwala does not feel motivated to stay in this business any longer, let alone encourage his 24-year-old son to join it.

One of the reasons, he says, is a company that is also one of India’s biggest donors to political parties via electoral bonds. Bhiwandi is supplied with power by Torrent Power Ltd (TPL), a distribution franchise of Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Co Limited (MSEDCL), since 2007. Powerloom owners like Aluwala and public representatives allege that power bills have doubled or tripled since the franchise was brought in, and this in turn has dealt a massive blow to the Rs 10,000-crore powerloom industry. Around 30-40% powerlooms have shut over the years.

Torrent Power purchased electoral bonds worth Rs 106.5 crore between 2019 and 2024. Of these, bonds worth Rs 76 crore were encashed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Rs 17 crore by the Congress, Rs 3.5 crore by the Nationalist Congress Party, Rs 3 crore by the Shiv Sena and the rest by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Data released by the Election Commission of India show that one tranche of bonds worth Rs 7.5 crore was purchased by TPL in May 2019 and encashed by the BJP three days later. The same month, the Maharashtra government ordered the city municipal corporation not to recover property tax worth Rs 285 crore (including interest and fine) from Torrent Power. The reason given was that such recovery of property tax would lead to higher tariffs and was not in the interest of citizens. A Shiv Sena-BJP alliance was running the state government at the time.

Originally a pharmaceutical company, the Rs 21,000-crore Torrent group’s power company now has a portfolio of generation, transmission and distribution of power. Torrent Power has a capacity of 4,110 MW with a mix of coal-based, gas-based, and renewable power plants.

In March 2024, TPL announced that it has been given a Letter of Award (LOA) from MSEDCL for the establishment of a 306 MW grid-connected solar project in Nasik district. The project's estimated cost is Rs 1,540 crore.

TPL’s only purchase of electoral bonds in 2024, worth Rs 25 crore, was encashed by the BJP in January 2024. BJP is part of the ruling coalition in Maharashtra state, and the energy portfolio is held by Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Back in the city, powerloom owners, labourers and ancillary businesses stare at a dwindling industry that might be breathing its last. And this, critics say, could be deliberate.

“They want to take Bhiwandi’s powerloom industry to Surat,” alleged Shiv Sena UBT’s former legislator from Bhiwandi East constituency Rupesh Mhatre, “since Surat has a large garment market and was also one of Torrent’s distribution circles.”

Representatives of Torrent Power that IndiaSpend spoke to denied any inflation of power bills. They said their meters have been checked and found accurate when tested against other meters; they blamed other factors for the decline of the powerloom industry and said that the company is being defamed for political gains. Despite requests, however, the company is yet to share with IndiaSpend any records of the testing of their meters in powerlooms. We will update the story when we receive an update.

Power Bills and Allegations

Following Supreme Court orders to make data around  electoral bonds public up until they were scrapped recently, the Election Commission has now published both sets of data on its website--those entities which purchased bonds (that is, who donated money) and those who redeemed those bonds (political parties which encashed those bonds). Early calculations had shown that Torrent Power was one of the biggest donors in India, and a sizable portion of its donations, along with those of Torrent Pharma, were encashed by the ruling BJP.

IndiaSpend’s own calculations show that Torrent Power alone donated Rs 106.5 crore, of which Rs 76 crore were encashed by the BJP. The earliest tranche of Rs 7.5 crore was purchased on May 7, 2019. The latest donation, worth Rs 25 crore, was in January 2024.

Before 2007, the city had power supply from MSEDCL just like the rest of the state but until then, it reported large scale energy loss (power theft) and poor bill recovery. On an experimental basis, TPL was appointed as a distribution franchise in 2007 to improve the same. Soon after, people started getting higher power bills and as the arrears piled up, the frequency of disconnection also became very high, locals said.

“Initially we were told that the high bills might be because of problems in wiring or other issues. But this kept happening for a few years and there was no grievance redressal mechanism to complain against TPL. They don’t even accept our written complaints,” said Aluwala.

“The power cost in the cluster is around Rs 8.25 to Rs 8.30 per unit. However, the government provides a power subsidy of Rs 3 per unit so the net power cost to the company is about Rs 5.25-5.30 per unit,” researcher B. Basu had noted in his 2019 research paper. “There have been allegations that one needs to grease the palm of the concerned officers to get the subsidy.”

Bhiwandi poster

A flyer calling for a ‘massive protest against Torrent Power’ organised by Torrent Atyachar Virodhi Jansangharsh Samiti last year. | Photo courtesy: Tanvi Deshpande, IndiaSpend

While franchises have to follow the tariff structure as approved by Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC), local people allege that the problem is not with the tariffs but with the meters which ‘jump’. Powerloom owners told IndiaSpend that their monthly power bills rose from Rs 8,000-10,000 to Rs 35,000 over the years.

Ishtiyaque Ansari’s powerloom started in the year 1977 in Vetalpada area.

“Back then they used to say, sona becho, loha kharido (sell gold and buy powerlooms),” Ansari said. “We pooled in money to buy looms but over the years, it is the government’s bad policies and the skyrocketing power bills which broke the industry’s back. In the past, the power bill was Rs 6,000-8,000 every month. Torrent continued the same tariff system, but slowly bills started rising. Now the bill comes up to Rs 35,000, plus there is harassment.”

Rizwan Ahmed shut down his powerloom in Nalapaar, Kariwali area for similar reasons.

“I got a power bill of Rs 5.27 lakh (with arrears),” Ahmed says. “Ab apne paas takat nahi hai (I don’t have the energy to continue business). I sold the loom to a relative because the profit margin had become very thin. Even if the unit is idle because of market ups and downs, the power bill goes on accumulating. It was best to shut it down.”

Over the years, there were different protests against the increased power bills led by various political parties. The latest one was in September 2023, and was organised by Kiran Channe, an advocate and local Communist Party of India leader Vijay Kamble. Protestors had demanded ‘Torrent Hatao, Bhiwandi Bachao’ (Remove Torrent, Save Bhiwandi) at the time.

“The government is trying to centralise everything and give the control of everything in the hands of a few industrialists,” said Kamble.

Indu Prakash Pandey, who has worked as a labourer in powerlooms for 32 years, wished he had learned some other skill instead.

“When I came to the city in 1991-92, I started working in a powerloom for Rs 6,500 salary while my gaav-wala(neighbour) went to Mumbai for other work that paid only Rs 700 a month. But today, that person earns Rs 40,000 whereas I get less than Rs 25,000 by working in powerlooms. Humari majboori badhayi gayi, humara bhav nahi badhaya gaya (We remained saddled to this industry for lack of options but the wages never increased). However, garment prices have increased in these decades,” said Pandey, who believes he is too old now to switch to another profession. Since powerloom owners cannot afford to increase the wages of labourers, they often make them manufacture more if they want more pay.

Bhiwandi CPI

Communist Party of India Bhiwandi’s Vijay Kamble (L) and advocate Kiran Channe who have been opposing Torrent Power along with others. | Photo courtesy: Tanvi Deshpande, IndiaSpend

Akram Ansari, another powerloom owner, believes the power bills are just one of the reasons behind the industry’s imminent demise.

“Let’s say you paid Rs 10,000 per unit before TPL came in, you now pay Rs 30,000,” Ansari explains. “The company says all meters are running fine. Right now, Torrent has a monopoly and I don’t think it will ever go. So only those who have alternative income are surviving. Otherwise, over 50% looms have been sold.”

Ansari also listed shortage of skilled labourers, politics of the yarn market, monopoly and exploitation by garment industry bigwigs as some of the other reasons for the industry’s decline.

The Congress party’s Rashid Tahir Momin also added government policies, poor textile exports, reduction in subsidy for technology upgradation, need for additional subsidies on power bills, imported textiles flooding the market, and a need for anti-dumping duty on finished garments to the reasons listed by Ansari.

“The meters were changed when TPL came in. Our bills certainly increased. Ye toh poora Bhiwandi bolta hai ki meter fast chalta hai (Entire Bhiwandi says that meters run fast). But we can’t point out how,” said Momin, owner of a 100-loom unit and president of the Bhiwandi Powerloom Federation, who also participated in the protest last year.

The city MLA Rais Shaikh of the Samajwadi Party had spoken against the ‘dadagiri [bullying] of Torrent Power’ in the Maharashtra legislative assembly multiple times, demanding that an ombudsman be appointed and schemes be brought in to help those with pending dues.

“Today, on the first day of the assembly…we have protested against the outrageous behavior of Torrent Power. We raised this issue so that the Govt. pays attention to the problems faced by the people of Bhiwandi and Mumbra due to the inflated bills,” Shaikh tweeted on September 7, 2020. Mumbra was also handed over as a franchise to TPL in 2019.

In 2023, while speaking in the legislative assembly on Shaikh’s demand that an ombudsman be appointed in the city, deputy chief minister Fadnavis said that the government would consider it. MSEDCL appointed two nodal officers to handle consumer grievances in the city s

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