Under pressure after the draft CAG report revealed gross discrepancies in the accounts of distribution companies, Delhi’s power regulator is now going to announce the findings of its own audit conducted on the capital expenditures of these discoms.
The Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) has suggested that its internal audit on the discoms is almost complete and that the results would be announced in two week’s time. DERC chairperson PD Sudhakar told The Hindu that the commission has indeed found anomalies in various capital expenditures cited by the discoms.
“There are instances where infrastructural upgrades have not been done even though on paper the discom has stated that it’s done. However, the audit has not found huge distortion of facts that could run into a huge sum of money,” said Mr Sudhakar. Besides, for the first time in four years, Delhiites will be in for a major relief as the commission is not going to announce any hike as part of its annual power tariff revision this time.
The power regulator in its audit has reviewed over 3,000 capital schemes taken up by the three Delhi discoms namely – Tata Power (TPDDL), BSES Yamuna (BYPL) and BSES Rajdhani (BRPL). It was conducted for all capital expenditures carried out between 2006 and 2011 and the total amount involved as capital costs has been come out to be more than Rs 979 crore.
The DERC is planning to make adjustments on the capital expenditure cited by the power utilities and levy penalties for not achieving targets like procurement of electricity through non-renewable energy.
“The deficit in revenue requirement can go down further a little with the audit of the discoms’ capital expenditure. Then there is additional revenue generated through the Time of Day (TOD) tariffs. In order to liquidate the past regulatory assets, which run up to around Rs. 20,000 crore, a surcharge of eight per cent has already been in place since 2012,” added Mr. Sudhakar.
It is pertinent to note that the AAP government had been insisting that the power regulator do not increase the tariffs until the CAG report on the audit of discoms is officially out.
