The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed Reliance ADAG-owned power distribution companies — BSES Rajdhani and BSES Yamuna —to settle all current unpaid bills to the tune of `788 crore (for period January-March 2014) of NTPC, the biggest supplier of electricity to Delhi before May 31, failing which the NTPC was free to snap supply of power during the peak summer months.
Deciding on the tariff standoff between BSES and Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC), the bench of Justices SS Nijjar and AK Sikri felt that this interim arrangement was necessary in order to ensure no inconvenience was caused to consumers. On one hand, BSES claimed that under recovery of tariffs to the tune of over `20,000 crore had made it unsustainable, while DERC claimed that the accounts produced by BSES were at variance. In the meantime, power suppliers NTPC, which caters to more than 80 per cent of power to Delhi, queued up accusing BSES of accumulating longstanding dues while noting that it faced no complaint against Tata-owned NDPl, supplying power to north Delhi.
While deciding to deal with the past dues separately, the bench ordered, “The petitioners (BSES Rajdhiani and BSES Yamuna) are directed to make payment as indicated in the documents placed as per the March 26 order. We make it clear that if the above amount is not paid by May 31, the stay (on disconnection notice by the NTPC) will be vacated.”
On the earlier date of hearing, the bench had directed BSES and NTPC officials to sit together and arrive at a consensus over the outstanding dues. Following the meeting held on May 5, it was agreed that BSES Yamuna owed `430.33 crore and BSES Rajdhani owed `358.40 crore to NTPC for the billing updated as on May 2.
BSES said the DERC had agreed to a roadmap for the payment of dues in a staggered manner over six years and proposed certain changes in it which would ensure that the same could be achieved in three years. But NTPC suggested that this was an issue to be settled between BSES and DERC and it should not be made a victim in the process. NTPC was adamant that if the payment was not forthcoming it would “regulate” supply leading to outages.