Delhi residents to get Rs 50 an hour for unscheduled power cuts

New Delhi: In a good news for Delhi residents, Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal on Thursday approved the Kejriwal government's proposal mandating an hourly compensation of Rs 100 to consumers in case of unscheduled power cuts.

The proposal to compensate consumers for unscheduled outages by power discoms in the national capital was approved by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal a few days ago and was sent for the L-G's approval.

"Approved proposal for issue of policy directions regarding payment of compensation to consumers in case of power failure," Baijal tweeted.

Reacting to the development, Kejriwal said the the policy will make discoms directly accountable to the people.

"This is a revolutionary and a v(ery) innovative policy of Delhi govt which will make DISCOMS directly accountable to people (sic)," Kejriwal tweeted.

As per the proposed policy, power discoms will have to pay their consumers for unscheduled power cuts, after first hour, at an hourly rate of Rs 100.

With the LG's approval, Delhi will become the first city in the country to have a policy to compensate consumers for unscheduled outages.

Under the policy, discoms will be exempt from paying penalty in the first hour of an unscheduled power cut. For the next hour, consumers will be paid Rs 50, after which compensation will be paid at a rate of Rs 100 per hour. The first hour exemption from penalty will be available once a day for the discoms.

There are three private power discoms -- BSES companies BYPL and BRPL, and the Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited (TPDDL) -- that supply power to the city, barring areas under the New Delhi Municipal Council and the Delhi Cantonment.

The compensation earned by the consumers will be adjusted against their monthly power bill. The three power distribution companies have a total of around 55 lakh registered consumers in the national capital.

In case, the compensation is not paid by the discoms, the consumers can lodge a complaint with the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Authority (DERC). The amount of compensation in such cases will be Rs 5,000 or five times of the compensation payable, whichever is higher, a government official said.

The affected consumers will be required to file a "no current" complaint through SMS, e-mail, telephone, mobile apps or official websites of discoms, giving their particulars such as name, consumer account (CA) number, mobile number.

The discoms will attend to the complaint and send a confirmation message to consumers with the date and time of restoration, the official said.

The official said that after the permissible time limit ends, the respective compensation amount will be automatically credited to the CA number without any manual intervention and a message sent to the consumer.