The revised electricity tariffs declared recently by Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) have been faced with opposition from many residents of the city. They question whether the revised rates actually benefit the consumer or the electricity board, and by extension the government.
Suman Malik, a resident of Youngsters Apartments in Sector 6, Dwarka, said, “The bill of several consumers will increase, especially for those who use up to 2 KiloWatt (KW) of power. The Delhi government may have marginally decreased the power tariffs, but has increased the fixed charges, which will lead to these people ultimately paying more than they used to. So earlier, for up to 2 KW, fixed charges have increased from Rs 25 to Rs 125! So now anyone even going on vacation and leaving their homes locked behind will end up paying more, despite no sosumption of electricity at all.”
Apex RWAs bodies such as URJA (United RWAs Joint Action) have shifted the discussion to various forums. CEO of URJA, Ashutish Dixit, said, “Power is an essential public utility. Every tariff order, whether rates go up or down, should be accounted for. Public utilities are by default monopolistic, and hence should be subjected to a CAG audit on performance and accounting.”
Experts are of the opinion that the tariffs must be revised such that it benefits residents more.
City Spidey spoke to Atul Goel, president of URJA. “The order announced by DERC has two major components. The first is an increase in fixed charges. RWAs have been demanding the abolition of fixed charges altogether, but instead of doing away wiht it, DERC increased it it manifold."
“By lowering the tariffs, the discoms have proved that they are making gains beyond the 16 per cent assured profits, so our case for a CAG audit just got stronger," Goel continued. "Currently a PIL on the matter is pending before the Supreme Court. Offering subsidies on power such that only a few categories benefit from it is nothing more than vote bank politics. Each voter is a taxpayer in some capacity. Now all this money is collected by the government as tax and returned to just a few categories of voters only by way of subsidy. What is this if not bribing?”
Most residents agree that there are many hidden layers to the traiff change and that policymakers should analyse the rates again.
