Issuing a stern warning to the discoms, the Delhi Government said on Tuesday that if they fail to address the dismal power situation in the city within a week, then the Government will not hesitate to consider “cancelling” their licenses. The announcement by the Government came after Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s meeting with the representatives of the three power discoms of Delhi over the city spate of outages that have hit Delhi over the last few weeks.
After the meeting, Power Minister Satyendra Jain said, “The CM has given them (discoms) a week’s time to take corrective measures while making it clear that strict action will be taken if they fail to do so. We will not hesitate to consider cancelling their licenses.”
Power Minister Satyendra Jain said the policy on getting consumers compensated for unscheduled blackouts will also be implemented within a week and that DERC will issue a notification in this regard.
“There’s no shortage of power in the city but the outages are due to local faults. The compensation formula will be implemented within a week. The DERC will notify this within a week. Discoms will decide how to implement it,” Jain said.
The meeting was attended by Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) chairperson apart from representatives of the private distribution companies BSES and Tata Power (TPDDl).
A senior Government official said the discoms could not offer a “single explanation” behind the outages despite there being no shortage of power in the national Capital.
“The Government has categorically asked them to set their house in order as people of Delhi will not suffer due to the inefficiency on their part,” the official said.
Delhi’s power demand hit an all-time peak of 6,188 MW on May 20, which is expected to rise by the month of July. On Tuesday, however, the peak load was relatively low at 4,834 MW as the weather has slightly cooled down due to rains on Monday.