Move to shield honest payers in power cases
Mahendra Kumar Gupta
The amendments will be made in the proposed Delhi Electricity Supply Code and Performance Standards Regulations Draft-2012, which has been in the making for the last few years. However, the draft is now expected to be amended and put up on the DERC website by June.
"Since we have been getting complaints and suggestions internally from our members, and the public, we have decided to amend certain portions of the draft wherein we want to strengthen the part that deals with the procedure for booking a case for unauthorized use of electricity against any consumer," said P D Sudhakar, chairman, DERC.
As per the proposed amendments, discoms will not be allowed to register a theft case on the basis of mere "suspicion". Officials said in many cases it was found that discoms had booked people who have genuine meter faults without even checking their credentials. Once this regulation is approved, a consumer who has made regular payments against his consumption will be given ample chance to explain himself before being booked for theft.
DERC is also considering directing the discoms to collect concrete evidence against a consumer before registering a case. "We want them to strictly adhere to the principle of natural justice wherein consumers are mandatorily issued notice and given time to respond," Sudhakar said. Also, the draft suggests recording of complaints in the presence of a witness, who could be a neighbour. DERC sources claim to receive at least 50 cases of harassment by discoms in the name of power theft every year.
The draft supply and performance code has also suggested enhancement of fines being imposed on the discoms for delay in addressing consumers' complaints related to failed supply, burnt meters or a transformer snag. The fines may go up to Rs 100 per day, or even more. Discom performance codes were last reviewed in 2007. A public hearing to discuss the draft that has been on the website was held a year ago but it has remained in limbo.
Arun Banerjee
--
DWARKA FORUM (Regd) www.dwarkaforum.org
Membership Application- Please visit...
http://www.dwarkaforum.org/self-support/
We are on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Dwarkaforum
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DWARKA FORUM (Regd)" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to dwarka-residen...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Arun Banerjee
(M) 9868227877
Use email save tree
Mahendra Kumar Gupta
Mahendra Kumar Gupta
Discoms not using available power
NOIDA: Refuting reports
that power cuts in different parts of Delhi on Thursday were caused by
snags in units of NTPC in the NCR, officials said the capital has
surplus power, which is not being utilized by the discoms. Though
1,913MW is available at NTPC's NCR stations, Delhi discoms are not drawing 285MW. City discoms aren't drawing 110 MW from the NTPC joint venture Jhajhar station.
Officials said NTPC-NCR has a total installed capacity of 4,437MW, of
which 2403MW is allocated to Delhi. The city also gets 177MW from the
NTPC joint venture Jhajjar station. If the power allocated from other NTPC stations is included, then the total allocation from all NTPC stations works out at 3,353 MW.
Officials claimed that in the past week, from May 3 to May 9, Delhi,
has surrendered about 115MW on average from NTPC's NCR stations and
another 106MW from the Jhajhar station. "Delhi has surplus power but the
discoms aren't utilizing fully the power made available by NTPC. In
this financial year to date, Delhi discoms have surrendered about 283MW
on average on a daily basis out of the NTPC NCR stations and 163MW from
Jhahar," said Ambarish Dave, regional executive director, NTPC.
About the snags which had allegedly led to the power cuts, Officials
said that even though the units in Dadri and Badarpur were stopped, it
didn't affect production in any way. NTPC Badarpur unit of 210MW was
stopped a little after 12am on Thursday and was made operational at
3.57pm. The Dadri unit of 490 MW was stopped at 7.46am on Thursday and
is expected to resume by Thursday evening. "There were technical
difficulties, but this didn't have an impact on Delhi's power supply," added Dave.
On being asked why the capital was going without power despite a
surplus, Dave said, "It's very strange. Delhi is short of power but I am
not able to sell power. I don't know what the reasons for these are."