Delhi: Discoms pitch for tariff revision

New Delhi: The power distribution companies on Friday strongly pitched for a tariff revision, a day after the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) failed to hike energy charges for the third year in sucession. The discoms asserted that most other Indian states have raised power rates in the last few years.

As part of its periodic tariff revision, the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) on Thursday kept usage charges for consumers unchanged but allowed a hike in the “fixed charge” component of the power tariff — between Rs 5 and Rs 75.

As per DERC’s order, while the “fixed charge” will go up for users with sanctioned load between 3kw and 5kw, there is no change in the “energy charge”, or electricity rates, for all categories.

An industry source pointed out that while states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and Uttarakhand had raised tariffs by 10-20 per cent, Delhi has effected no hikes since 2014. He said the revenue gap for Delhi’s three discoms has reached over Rs 34,000 crore on account of a “non-cost reflective tariff”.

The last tariff hike in Delhi was in July 2014. The 5 per cent hike prescribed in this tariff order was for the financial year 2014-15. The source pointed out that since privatisation of distribution in Delhi in 2002, there has been an increase of around 300 per cent in the cost of purchasing power from generators. On the other hand, the retail tariff has increased by only around 90 per cent, according to the source.

He said that while Delhi’s bulk power rate — Rs 5.4 per unit — is only over 30 per cent higher than the national average of Rs 4.08, the cost of purchasing power from Delhi’s state generation plant is astronomically higher than the country average. Haryana became the latest to raise rates, with the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) increasing the power tariff for 2017-18 from July 1.