The issue of BSES discoms — BSES Yamuna (BYPL) and BSES Rajdhani (BRPL) — repeatedly failing to clear dues was the key agenda raised during a public hearing conducted by the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) on Thursday.
The hearing was convened to seek comments for creating the framework of the DERC (Composite Terms and Conditions for Tariff & Accounting) Regulations, 2015. Once notified, these regulations will be used to determine the tariffs for the current fiscal.
The panel for the public hearing included DERC chairman Krishna Saini and member B.P. Singh.
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Officials of State-owned generation companies IPGCL and PPCL suggested that the regulator explore the option of creating a common account from where they could retrieve the revenue deposited by the BSES discoms. “BSES Yamuna (BYPL) and BSES Rajdhani (BRPL) owe the Delhi government more than Rs. 8,000 crore. We as generation companies have to pay fuel bills, but are unable to do so as the discoms are refusing to pay up,” said an IPGCL official. With all the functional power plants in Delhi being fairly old, the State generation companies also requested for more funds to upgrade these and make them more energy-efficient and less polluting. The Delhi Transco Limited (DTL), on the other hand, urged the DERC to make a provision in its regulations for recovery of its money.
‘Make discoms accountable’
A number of Residents’ Welfare Associations (RWAs) present during the hearing unanimously pressed upon the issue of making the discoms more accountable. “There is no record as to how much the discoms have spent under capital investments. They have not submitted any true-up petitions on capital costs since 2006,” said representatives of United Residents of Delhi.
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