DERC should be made accountable to people: AAP

AAP today demanded that the central law governing the functioning of the DERC should be amended to make the regulator accountable to the people.
The party accused the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) of being "extremely reluctant" to fix the accountability for power cuts in Delhi and to check its arbitrariness in hiking electricity tariffs.
The party claimed that it has been more than two months since DERC had announced its decision to probe within a week the reasons for long power cuts in the national capital during the months of May and June, and alleged that the regulator has since then been silent over the issue.

"DERC's kid gloves approach in dealing with private power distribution companies (discoms), gives rise to reasonable apprehension that the regulator has failed to act impartially against them," the Aam Aadmi Party alleged in a statement.
Since there is "no transparency in the functioning of DERC", the law should be amended to make it accountable to elected representatives - the MPs and MLAs, the party said.
"Its decisions on dealing with discoms and fixing of electricity tariffs should include the views of elected representatives, and it should be made mandatory for the DERC to make public the reasons for accepting or rejecting these views," it said.