Congress accuses government of tweaking meter norms

New Delhi: The Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) on Saturday alleged that the AAP government coaxed people living in rented accommodations to install separate power meters, following which the DERC increased the fixed charges benefitting the discoms.

At a press conference, the party’s Delhi unit president Sheila Dikshit alleged that the Arvind Kejriwal government “enacted a drama of installing lakhs of meters to benefit the power companies.” “Electricity bills used to be nominal before. In the name of fixed charges, the government collected crores of rupees and gave it to power discoms,” she alleged.

The Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) is the competent authority for fixing power consumption rates in the national capital. The Delhi Congress’ working president, Haroon Yusuf, accused the AAP government of “befooling people” and making them install lakhs of power meters in JJ clusters, unauthorised colonies, and elsewhere. “After the meters were installed, the fixed charge component of power tariff was raised causing a lot of trouble to the poor. This money is going to the discoms,” he alleged. “Now, in the run-up to the (Assembly) elections, Kejriwal has been saying he will ask the regulator to roll back the hike in the fixed charge,” Mr Yusuf said. During a public meeting on June 1, Mr Kejriwal claimed that the DERC had raised the fixed charge component of power tariff last year “without consulting the Delhi government.”

“New tariff rates will be fixed next month. We have asked the DERC to bring the fixed charges to previous levels and they are likely to agree to it,” he had said.