Discoms out of cash,another tariff hike soon

Chairman of DERC P D Sudhakar said,“We are yet to firm up the details,but we are working towards a balanced tariff hike. Discoms are unable to purchase power and are facing accumulated deficit. In last year’s tariff order,we had recognised the need to hike the tariff so that discoms could partially recover their losses. This is year,too,we will factor in their problems,but keep it a balanced hike.”

In its petition,Tata Power had asked for a consumer tariff hike of 19.7 per cent for the fiscal 2012-13. BSES Rajdhani asked for 19.8 per cent tariff hike and BSES Yamuna asked for 27.8 per cent increase.

“The prices of everything are going up. Power tariff alone cannot be what it used to be. The DERC should have announced new power tariff in the beginning of June. But they took time to plan it so that residents are not affected much,” Dikshit said.

Chief Secretary P K Tripathi said: “The tariff hike may be announced tomorrow. If it is not announced soon there could be a power crisis. The discoms do not have money and the banks are not ready to give them a loan either.”

The Capital has been reeling under a severe power shortage for the last four days,after state-run NHPC cut 200 MW of supply to BSES for not clearing dues of over Rs 225 crore. Damodar Valley Corporation has also threatened to stop 280 MW supply to the discom if it did not make payment of around Rs 330 crore.

The two power generation companies of Delhi government — Pragati Power Corporation Ltd and Indraprastha Power Generation Corporation Ltd — too had asked BSES to clear its dues of around Rs 1,300 crore last week.

Earlier this month,Tata Power had requested the Delhi government to help it financially by infusing a fresh equity of Rs 245 crore just like it had done to bail out BSES. In the case of BSES,the government had offered a bailout package by infusing fresh equity of Rs 500 crore to the company. Reliance had infused Rs 520 crore and the total amount of Rs 1,020 crore was used for getting a loan of Rs 5,000 crore from IDBI Bank.

The BSES Yamuna will set up a grid sub-station in Mayur Vihar Phase-III at a cost of Rs 16 crore. The foundation stone of the sub-station was laid by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Monday.