More than two months have passed since the May 30 storm exposed the lack of preparedness of the Delhi Transco limited (DTl) as well as the discoms which led to a massive power blackout across the city, but the national Capital’s power regulator is yet to fix any accountability for the disaster.
On July 21, the chairperson of the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) had told The Pioneer that in a week’s time the regulator would announce the date of hearing in the case of affixing responsibility for the power crisis that exposed the Capital’s vulnerability to long outages in May-end. But 20 days have elapsed since July 21, there is no progress in the case as yet and the date of hearing is nowhere in sight. Despite being issued a showcause notice by the regulator, the DTl is yet to file its detailed reply, said DERC chairman PD Sudhakar. So far, it has submitted only a preliminary reply explaining reasons for the blackouts and transmission disaster. The three discoms — BSES Rajdhani, BSES Yamuna and Tata Power — have filed their replies in which they have put the responsibility for power outages on the Delhi Government-owned transmission utility.
Taking suo motu cognisance of news reports on power crisis here, the DERC had registered a case and issued showcause notices to all the stakeholders — BSES Rajdhani, BSES Yamuna and Tata Power limited, and transmission utility Delhi Transco limited (DTl). While issuing the showcause notices, the regulator had also asked them to respond as to why appropriate action should not be taken against them in accordance with the provisions of the Electricity Act, 2003. “The discoms have blamed DTl for the power crisis, which they claimed happened essentially because of its failure to augment and strengthen the transmission network,” said a senior discom official.
Sudhakar said the regulator is still going through the detailed replies submitted by the discoms. He went on to explain the reasons for the delay in the case and said, “We are looking forward to announce the date of hearing where we will listen to all the stakeholders and fix accountability and responsibility for the blackout. We will also take necessary action against the erring stakeholders.”
When asked how come the regulator ended up working so slow a senior DERC official said, “These are Government works and such things take time. After all, it is a lot of paperwork to do.” While explaining how the case will be taken forward, DERC member JP Singh said, “We will find out why and how come it (the power outage) happened. And if need be, we will also ask the stakeholders to provide us with evidence to
substantiate their claims. As it is a judicial proceeding, it will be inappropriate to speculate about it before hand. But we will ensure that accountability and responsibility is fixed in this case.”