Delhiites to get hourly compensation for power outages

In a delightful news, Delhiites will now get hourly compensation of Rs 100 in case of unscheduled power cuts with the same being adjusted in their monthly bills, Power Minister Satyendar Jain said today.

Lt Governor Anil Baijal had yesterday approved the initiative by the Delhi government.

"There is real-time data of outages and if an unscheduled power cut affects more than 50 consumers in an area, they need not complain. The compensation will be adjusted in their monthly bills," the minister told reporters here.

The real-time data of outages is maintained by power discoms and the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC).

"The policy has been made to ensure accountability of discoms to consumers," Jain said.

The proposal has now been sent to the DERC and it will be notified soon, he said.

As per the policy, the discoms will not have to pay compensation if outage lasts for one hour. For next one hour, they will pay the same at the rate of Rs 50 per consumer. They will have to pay Rs 100 for each hour following first two hours of power cut.

Delhi has nearly 50 lakh domestic and 10 lakh commercial power connections, the minister said.

In order to remove the problems of outages caused by technical reasons, a large number of transformers have been installed and the power cuts in Delhi are least in the country, he said.

For strict implementation of the policy, the consumers have been enabled to complain with the DERC in case they are not paid due compensation by the discoms.

The amount of compensation in such cases will be