'Discoms should either return fixed charges collected from people or adjusted in bills'

NEW DELHI: Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee Working President Haroon Yusuf said that the Delhi Congress abstained from the public hearing to discuss the power tariff hike, organised by regulator Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) on Wednesday, as the one-member DERC has become a joke as it is controlled like a puppet by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. He said that the meeting was reduced to a shadow boxing between the Aam Aadmi Party and the BJP to fool the people, who were represented by the Residents' Welfare Associations.

Yusuf, a former Power Minister in Delhi, said that the DERC should comprise of three members, but for the past two years, it has been functioning with just one member, who is the chairman of the power regulatory body.

He said that the Kejriwal Government has not bothered to fill the two vacant posts of members in the DERC, which shows the lack of interest of the AAP Government, in the affairs of the power regulatory body. Yusuf reiterated the Congress demand that the hiked fixed charges should be rolled back immediately and the crores collected on this head should be either returned to power consumers or adjusted in the power bills.

Senior Congress leader Yusuf said that the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee has been demanding that the Rs 5040 crores collected by the power companies in fixed charges should either be returned to the consumers or no power tariff should be charged from the consumers for the next six months.