DERC penalises Tata Power Distribution Ltd for violations

The order by Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission came in response to a petition filed against TPDDL by Anita Goel, a resident of Sector-2 of Rohini.

When asked, a TPDDL official said the company would fully comply with the DERC order.

In the order, the DERC said the connection to the consumer was issued for non-domestic purposes but the same was billed by TPDDL for domestic tariff by "mistake". The company later revised the bill based on commercial tariff instead of domestic rates which was not paid by the consumer.

The company had issued a disconnection notice to the consumer for defaulting in making the payment of Rs 57,373 on November 24, 2010. The revised demand was raised pursuant to revision of the tariff category from domestic to non-domestic.

Upset over the disconnection notice, the consumer had then approached the Consumer Grievances Redressal Forum (CGRF) which had ordered restoration of the power supply.

The DERC observed that the TPDDL disconnected the supply of the complainant on December 20, 2010 in spite of the order of CGRF dated December 9, 2010, for restoration of the supply which is a violation of the regulations.

TPDDL told DERC that inadvertently the details of the order could not be uploaded in their system which resulted in issuance of disconnection order and after detection of the error the connection was restored on December 22, 2010.

The DERC observed that TPDDL cannot make excuse of its follies by not flagging the information in its system and that the action comes in the purview of violation of laid down norms. (MORE)