With the private discoms in the Capital — BSES Radhani and BSES Yamuna — pushing for higher tariff to make their business viable, the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) has accused the two firms of “financial indiscipline” indicating how the power purchase cost reflected by the Reliance firms in its balance sheet for 2013-14 was at “variance” with actual figures supplied real time by them recently.
The variance became more than obvious in the figures supplied by DERC to Court indicating two sets of figures for the same component received from BSES Rajdhani Power limited (BRPl) and BSES Yamuna Power limited (BYPl), one at the beginning of financial year 2013-14 and another on April 24 at the instance of the apex court.While BRPl showed a “difference of Rs296 crore” in the long term power purchase agreement cost (PPAC) for a five-month period from August- December 2013, the corresponding difference recorded in BYPl accounts was Rs232 crore. The accounts of private discoms are pending audit by Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).
The DERC as well as the power generation companies (NTPC, Power Grid, etc) also informed Court that the NDPl, which is the other power discom in Delhi, run by Tatas, did not have a single penny outstanding against it. Senior advocate Meet Malhotra, representing DERC, said, “On a scrutiny from April 2013 to January 2014, a variance of Rs111 crore (for BRPl) and Rs17 crore (for BYPl) is observed wherein the power purchase payments in the cash flow statement are higher than the month-wise power purchase payment details submitted by BRPl/BYPl, thereby indicating financial indiscipline while maintaining the books of accounts and its data submission to the Commission from time to time.”
However, BSES refuted the claims by DERC and power generation companies and said that for the billing period January-April 2014, it has paid all current dues to generation and transmission companies. Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the two firms, referred to an affidavit which showed that out of a due of Rs889 crore, the company had paid Rs765 crore, which included payments to NTPC (Rs601 crore), NHPC (Rs9 crore), Power Grid (Rs24 crore), Damodar Valley Corporation (Rs35 crore), Aravali Power Company (Rs56 crore) among others.
Counsel for Power Grid referred to previous dues too, indicating that the two discoms owed Rs160 crore of which only Rs4 crore was paid. The bench of Justices SS Nijjar and AK Sikri directed DERC, NTPC, Power Grid and others to supply to BSES information on bills raised and payments received in order to reconcile with BSES’ claim of repaying dues and posted the matter to Tuesday.