Delhiites might soon have to shell out more towards electricity bills with the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) set to announce the new power tariff in July-end. The revised tariff will come into effect from August 1.
DERC Chairman PD Sudhakar said that the assessment of revised tariff petitions of the distribution companies is complete and the submissions from various quarters in the public hearing have been discussed at length by the members. “Delhiites can expect the revised power tariffs by end of this month. The process took time as a lot of analysis and verifications had to done. We are in the final leg where we will decide the raise, if any, in the tariffs,” Sudhakar said.
Earlier, the power regulatory body had said the new tariffs would be announced by June-end. Meanwhile, in May, Sudhakar had indicated that the existing tariff might be increased in order to reduce the financial deficit of over Rs 7,000 crore.
At that time, he had also ruled out the possibility of reducing power tariff, as demanded by BJP. Sudhakar maintained that reducing it was practically impossible and that the private discoms had demanded an average increase of 15 per cent in the power tariff.
“Private stakeholders had given us a report in which they had projected an accumulated deficit of over Rs 19,500 crore. And, if after analysis, this comes out to be true then a hike in power tariff is inevitable,” he had said.
However, after analysis DERC said that the accumulated deficit was just over Rs 7,000 crore till March 11, this year.