Penalising Delhi discoms: AAP promises what DERC already proposes

Smart metering required to fine companies

The Arvind Kejriwal led-Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) election promise of compensating Delhi consumers for power cuts and snags could be embroiled in drawn-out legal proceedings.

The state government recently directed the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission to compensate consumers for outages, by asking power utilities to deduct a penalty amount from electricity bills. The three companies supplying electricity in Delhi are Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited, and the Reliance Power-promoted BSES Rajdhani Power Limited and BSES Yamuna Power Limited.

The Delhi Electricity Supply Code and Performance Standards defines performance criteria for distribution companies and has penalties for unscheduled power cuts, load shedding, technical faults and accidents. These standards are being changed and a final draft will be ready after July 13.

Earlier, the penalties related only to scheduling of power and grid discipline. Now the DERC has gone into defaults ranging from power cuts to technical faults and the time taken to correct these. A power industry executive, however, said this level of monitoring was possible only with smart meters and smart grids.  “Smart electrical equipment with data monitoring and artificial intelligence will take another five years to be installed across the supply chain,” he added.



The draft regulations, uploaded on www.derc.gov.in, list penalties for distribution companies if they default in any service. “We are looking into the suggestions made by the AAP government and these will be weighed against legal and procedural limits, like all other recommendations,” a DERC official said.

The state government has proposed a penalty of Rs 50 per hour per consumer for the first two hours of a power cut followed by Rs 100 for every subsequent hour. It has also asked the DERC to track outages and defaults daily. The penalty amount proposed by the government is the same as that suggested by the DERC in the draft.

But implementing the government’s suggestions will involve drawn-out legal proceedings. DERC officials said the penalty would be imposed only when a consumer or a group of consumers complained to the distribution company. “The licensee shall register every complaint of a consumer regarding failure of power supply, quality of power supply, meters, and bills... and intimate the complaint number to the consumer,” say the draft rules.

“The public grievances cell of the government of the national capital of Delhi is kept informed. It will compile details of consumers affected by each power cut on the basis of complaints received,”  the DERC official said.



For receiving the penalty amount in their electricity bills, a consumer will have to file a legal case or a formal complaint with either the distribution company or the DERC.

“Any person who is affected by the failure of the distribution licensee to meet the standards of performance specified under these regulations and who seeks to claim compensation shall file his claim with such a distribution licensee within a maximum period of 60 days from the time such a person is affected by such failure of the distribution licensee to meet the standards of performance,” say the rules.

Power distribution in Delhi is managed by private companies. The three private distribution companies in Delhi are Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL), Reliance Power promoted BSES Rajdhani Power Limited (BRPL) and BSES Yamuna Power Limited (BYPL).