As more and more of residents in Group Housing Societies (GHS) rue being unable to avail of the 50 per cent subsidy on electricity bills, the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) on Thursday issued the detailed modalities through which households in such societies could come under the ambit of the scheme.
According to the guidelines, the onus for making the subsidy available to the residents lies primarily with the GHS concerned.
“The GHS will have to get the subsidy form signed by individual members and counter-signed by the president or secretary of the society and submit it to the discom. Besides, it is mandatory for the GHS to maintain consumption data of individual members,” said a DERC official.
Once a discom receives the subsidy claim form, it will then adjust the subsidy amount in the subsequent bill of the household.
In order to keep a tab on the number of households availing the subsidy in the society, the DERC has made it mandatory for the GHS to get the subsidy audited by a CAG empanelled auditor annually. The report will then have to be sent to the discom.
Officially, such societies have been eligible for the power subsidy scheme since October last year, but there was no set procedure through which the same could be implemented.
With complaints from residents mounting, it was on March 23 this year that the Delhi government sent a letter to the power regulator to formulate modalities under which the GHS residents could avail it.
Meanwhile, the power regulator has also proposed to convert single-point connections in such societies into individual connections. The policy, once notified, is set to benefit scores of group housing societies, particularly those in Dwarka, which has over 360 such societies.
In a single-point system, the society is directly billed by the discom, which then collects electricity dues from consumers not knowing who consumed more or less — an aspect the residents consider the biggest disadvantage.
