The Delhi government and the Lieutenant Governor may be headed for yet another showdown if the former accepts ex-DERC chief Bijendra Singh’s recommendation to sack the city power regulator’s chairperson and members.
According to Section 90 of the Electricity Act, 2003, the three-member board (chairperson and two members) of the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) can be removed only by the Chairperson of the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL) to whom the issue can only be sent by the Delhi L-G.
“Chairperson of the DERC is appointed by the L-G. If the Delhi government decides to remove him, it will have to send the matter to L-G who, if he deems the case to be fit, will then forward it to the APTEL. The APTEL will then take up the case and begin proceedings accordingly,” said a power expert.
Maintaining its stand of being a quasi-judicial body, the power regulator said, “Anybody who has doubts or complaints regarding the commission’s functioning or removal of its members is free to approach the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL) which is the competent authority to issue orders/directions to us. No other channel is prescribed in the Electricity Act, 2003.”
The Aam Aadmi Party government, on Saturday, said it would prepare an Action Taken Report (ATR) once it fully examines the white paper, whereas, the DERC claimed the report to be “distorted”.
“The facts mentioned in the white paper are not holistic. The report alleges that DERC allowed discoms to buy up to 50 times more expensive short-term power, instead of taking from Indian Energy Exchange. But, in reality, only 2% of the power purchased by discoms is from short-term sources. 98% of power is withdrawn through long-term power purchase agreements,” said a senior DERC official.
Power experts too agreed and called the report “hollow”. They explained short-term power purchases are meant for emergency purposes and that IEX does not have the capacity to give large volumes of power to discoms.
Mr. Singh who submitted the “white paper on electricity tariff post privatisation of distribution of electricity at Delhi in 2002” to the AAP government highlighted in his report that the DERC unduly favoured the discoms by allowing them to buy expensive short-term power, not ensuring the genuineness of capital goods being bought and installed and refusing to inform if the billing software of discoms was checked by experts.
AAP govt and the L-G may be headed for yet another showdown if the former accepts former DERC chief Bijendra Singh’s recommendation to sack city power regulator’s chairperson and members
