New Delhi: New power tariff coming this weekend

Saurabh Sinha
[ 8 Sep, 2006 0308hrs IST TIMES NEWS NETWORK ]

NEW DELHI: The Capital would be spared last year's trauma of having to fight an 'unjustified' power hike. After an exceptionally long and hot summer this year when the city reeled under long power cuts, the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) has sought a firm stand from the government on the issue of continuance of last year's subsidy.

While verbal assurances are learnt to have been made in this regard, the commission is going to announce the tariff for 2006-07 after getting a written reply from the government. And this could happen over the weekend, probably on Friday.

"The commission has written a letter to the government over its stand on last year's subsidy of about Rs 90 crore. The reply is expected by Friday. The discoms would also be told to extend their matching rebate on consumer bills of 5%. They will continue to get their assured 16% return on investment. Their share will come from savings made by cutting losses more than the level fixed at the time of privatisation," said highly placed sources.

They point out that the benefit of overachievement in reducing losses had to flow back to the consumer and what better way of doing it than to provide discount on bills.

In fact, one discom has asked DERC to allow discounts to consumers in areas where their help has led to reduction in theft.

Both the discoms and government would be required to give discount and subsidy, respectively, of Rs 90 crore each.

Armed with an assurance of extension of subsidy from the government, DERC could actually announce a surplus in the power sector this fiscal.

The massive gap of Rs 1,303 crore submitted by Transco is learnt to have been drastically pruned down by disallowing the Rs 450-crore arrears of DVB time, it shows as a liability.

In addition, the refund of Rs 300 crore to Transco from NTPC on power purchase payments of the past few years has also helped reduce this loss.

"The surplus shown by discoms and the reduced losses of Transco could actually lead to a surplus which would be kept as contingency fund. This would be used to factor in the high power purchase cost this year and also the disputed depreciation issue that can lead to an extra burden of several crores," said sources.