‘Every consumer owes Rs 60 k to BSES’

Pitching for a steep hike in power tariff in the city, Reliance-owned power company, BSES on Sunday, claimed that every power consumer in Delhi owes Rs 60,000 to power companies.

“Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) has no option but to raise the power tariff to pay back this outstanding money to power companies. There is Rs 28,400 crore outstanding upon power consumers of Delhi, which roughly comes to Rs 50,000 per consumer,” said BSES in a press statement on Sunday.

“This debt amount is the average for 50 lakh consumers in the city. The amount may vary from consumer to another,” added the statement.

The company emphasised that as the consumers have already used up the electricity, they shall have to pay this amount. “The situation could have been avoided by a reasonable increase in power tariff in every financial year, but DERC had been avoiding it,” said the spokesperson of BSES. According to the claims of the BSES group, the dues known as regulatory assets have reached the extent of Rs 28,400 crore.

Explaining the outstanding amount, BSES spokesperson said that DERC has admitted to the Rs 27,000 crore outstanding of the three power companies - BSES Yamuna, BSES Rajdhani and TATA owned TDDPL. “Out of the Rs 27,000 crore, around Rs 21,700 crore dues alone, are upon BSES group. Besides, Rs 1400 crore have been accumulated due to non-payment of power purchase adjustment charges. The power companies also argued that the cost of electricity has increased by 300 per cent in the last ten years but the electricity tariff has been increased by 90 per cent only. BSES argued that the current outstanding amount has been accumulated due to no increase in power tariff in the city from 2005 to 2010.