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Consumers to be paid for outages from this weekend

Last Updated 24 May 2016, 09:49 IST

Private power distribution companies will have to pay compensation to consumers for unscheduled blackouts exceeding two hours from this weekend, Delhi Power Minister Satyendar Jain said on Monday.

Sources said the power regulator, Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission, is mulling to ask discoms to pay Rs 50 per hour to consumers who face blackouts beyond the two-hour period.

“The compensation will be made on per hour basis and the amount will be adjusted against the electricity bills of the beneficiaries,” Jain said.

“The Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission has to implement the scheme (floated by the government last year). The draft notification has been issued and consultations have taken place. The scheme will be implemented by this week,” he added.

He said some areas faced outages for a few hours after a 400 KVA tower in Bamnauli fell on Sunday.

“We have written to the central government to probe into the incident. As of now we have made alternate arrangements but the complete restoration will take two to three days’ time," he added.

Complaints rectified
The minister said that about 90 per cent of complaints about outages are rectified within two hours.

“Of the total 2,938 complaints received by (Reliance discom) BSES Yamuna Power Limited (BYPL) on Sunday, some 1,022 complaints were resolved in the first hour. Another 1,541 complaints were rectified within two hours. Less than 100 complaints took more than two hours,” said Jain.

The city government has been putting pressure on discoms to upgrade their infrastructure.

“In the last 10 to 15 years they were not able to upgrade their infrastructure. They either failed to upgrade the infrastructure or if they did they used sub-standard material which could not deliver the result," he said.

On Sunday, the city saw a peak power demand of 5,634 megawatts. The highest ever peak power demand of 6,188 MW was on Friday.

“There is no shortage in the supply of electricity in Delhi. Hence, there are no scheduled power cuts in Delhi. But we have been getting complaints that some areas are facing blackouts in the name of 'local faults',” said Jain.

The minister said the discoms have been pulled up to maintain their equipment to provide uninterrupted power to Delhiites.

While Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited received 752 complaints on Sunday, the private discom got 1,241 complaints three days ago, the power minister said.

The BYPL received 4,631 complaints three days ago whereas BSES Rajdhani Power Limited (BRPL) got 3,995 complaints on Sunday. It received 5,211 complaints three days ago.

The low number of complaints is attributed to weekends as offices remain shut on Sundays.

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(Published 24 May 2016, 09:49 IST)

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