NEW DELHI: Following Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal's approval to the Delhi government's proposal to compensate consumers for unscheduled power cuts in the Capital, Delhi Power Minister Satyendar Jain on Friday issued directions regarding the power compensation policy to the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Authority (DERC).
The Authority has been told that in case of unscheduled power cuts, distribution companies (discoms) have to identify all the affected consumers themselves.
As per the policy, in case of an unscheduled power cut, discoms will have to restore electricity within an hour, failing which they shall have to pay a penalty of Rs 50 per hour per consumer for the first two hours, and Rs 100 per hour per consumer after two hours.
The directions issued on Friday stated, "In case an individual consumer is affected, consumer shall file a' no current' complaint. All complaints shall be assigned a unique serial number. Normal procedure shall be followed by the discom complaint centre for attending to the 'no current' complaint, as is being done on date."
"The compensation amount should be credited to the CA number automatically, without any manual intervention. A confirmation message to the consumer should also be sent," it noted.
Similarly, in case a group of consumers affected, the discom shall identify all the affected consumers from their own records and pay the compensation to each and every CA number automatically, as per the time schedule of compensation.
Whenever the permissible time limit is over, the respective compensation amount should be credited to the CA (customer account) number automatically, irrespective of filing of complaint by one or more consumers of that affected group, the DERC has been told.
Further, in case compensation is not credited automatically by the concerned discom, the consumer can approach DERC for its resolution.
The amount of compensation in such cases shall be Rs 5,000 or five times the compensation payable originally, whichever is higher.
There are three private power discoms, namely the BSES companies BYPL and BRPL, and the Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL), which supply power to the city, barring areas under the New Delhi Municipal Council and the Delhi Cantonment Board.