AAP victory makes city discoms jittery

Worry over poll promise to slash rates

Will the Aam Aadmi Party get into confrontation with power distribution companies or will its government cooperate with them to fulfil the election promise of reducing Delhiites electricity bills?

Delhi's power discoms are in jitters. The pressure is likely to mount on the private distribution firms – Anil Ambani’s Reliance Infrastructure that controls BSES Delhi discoms, BSES Yamuna Power and BSES Rajdhani Power, and Tata Power that operates through Tata Power Delhi Distribution.

Both company’s shares have been on the downside for past few days. Despite both BSES and Tata Power saying they would work with the government in ensuring uninterrupted and quality power supply, there is concern among their executives that the new government will delve in their affairs. 

Providing uninterrupted power during the summer will be challenge for the new government as the the capital’s peak demand crossed 4,100 MW in 2014.

It is yet to be seen whether the Kejriwal-led government will indulge in confrontation with discoms like in its previous 49-days term or work with them in tandem, said a Union Power Ministry official.

On AAP’s demand of CAG audit of discoms, these firms said they have been cooperating with CAG on the auditing, going on from January 2014, though both Reliance Infrastructure and Tata Power have challenged the audit order in the Delhi High Court.  
The AAP in its manifesto had promised to reduce electricity bills by half, even though the rates are already the lowest in the country at Rs 3 per unit in the minimum consumption slab.

A discom official on condition of anonymity said that any tariff lower than Rs 3 per unit is practically impossible in Delhi.

At the current power rates, Delhi discoms, in spite of the least amount of subsidy (which is around Rs 300 crore annually), have regulatory assets of Rs 22,000 crore.

Although the national capital’s bulk power purchase rate was 60 per cent higher than the national average of Rs 3.49 a unit, the tariffs charged from the consumers were the lowest in the country at Rs 2.8 a unit, said an official.