Delhi Lieutenant-Governor (L-G) VK Saxena has directed Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar to conduct an enquiry into the alleged non-implementation of power subsidy payment to consumers through direct benefit transfer (DBT) as was ordered by the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) in 2018.

 Kumar has been asked to submit a report within a week. Saxena's action followed a complaint filed at the L-G Secretariat which raised issues of alleged "impropriety and discrepancies" in the power subsidy scheme of the Kejriwal Government, sources at the L-G office said.

Sources said the complainants, including eminent lawyers and jurists, have alleged that a scam was affected after Delhi Government appointed J Shah, spokesperson of AAP and Vice Chairman, Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi (DDC) and Naveen Gupta, who is son of AAP MP, ND Gupta as directors of private discoms. "The LG has also asked the Chief Secretary to probe the subsidy amount allegedly given by the AAP Government to BSES discoms," a source said.

“The complainants have alleged that the AAP Government, instead of recovering the dues of Rs 21,200 crore allegedly owed by the BSES discoms for power purchased by them from State generation companies, allowed (discoms) to settle their outstanding through subsidy reimbursements,” the sources said. “This amounted to a sum of Rs 11,550 crore being settled as reimbursements.

“Delhi Government unduly allowed the discoms to charge Late Payment Surcharge (LPSC) at a rate of 18 per cent from the people and pay the same at a rate of 12 per cent to Government-owned power generation companies, in the process providing them a windfall gain of Rs. 8,500 crore at cost to  State exchequer. The  Government violated its own decision of 2015-16, that entailed the audit of BRPL and BYPL be conducted every year for electricity subsidy paid to them by Delhi Government,”   they alleged.