After a decade of privatising power distribution in the national Capital, the Delhi Government has constituted a three-member committee headed by former bureaucrat Ajay Shankar to explore measures to improve its performance. In a related development, the Government has directed discoms to pay outstanding dues of power generation and transmission companies.
According to Power Minister Haroon Yusuf, the committee is constituted as per the instructions of Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. “It will also assess the overall performance of three distribution companies in the past 10 years. The aim is to make power sector more effective and people-oriented. The report should be submitted within four months,” he said.
The other members include Chairman (PGC) and Advisor (Reforms and Innovation), Government of Delhi PK Tripathi and former Secretary, Department of Financial Services, Government of India, DK Mittal. The Minister stated that the power situation in Delhi is much better than the neighbouring States. In 2002, the demand was only 1,800 Megawatt while in 2013; it has touched to 5,800 Megawatt. The committee would look into the various aspects relating to power sector and would also suggest measures to take forward the power sector.
The terms and references of the Committee would enable it to provide a comprehensive framework to enhance customers’ satisfaction. Officials said the Government was not happy with functioning of power distribution companies as areas across the city have been facing long outages due to problem in their distribution network. “Delhi has surplus power but still certain areas have been facing power cuts due to local faults. The committee will look into the issue as well,” they said.
On the outstanding dues, Principal Secretary (Power) Shakti Sinha stated that power generation company has informed the Power Department that discoms have not paid the dues which resulted in financial crunch of the company. The discoms owed dues to the tune of Rs 3,400 crore to two Delhi Government-run power generation and transmission companies.