Power regulator to announce revised tariff for 2013 by July

The new power tariffs for this year will be in place by July, said Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) on Wednesday.

The new power tariffs for this year will be in place by July, said Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) on Wednesday.

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The announcement by the power regulator came after the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity asked the DERC to ensure that the tariff order is in place by April every year.

Taking note of the delay in announcing a tariff order in April by DERC, the tribunal has asked the city power regulator to enforce it on time in the future. “The new tariff order for this year will be in place by July. We have not been in touch with the government regarding subsidy on power tariff,” PD Sudhakar, DERC chairman.

“There are seven utilities who had to submit their petitions and we kept receiving the petitions spread over December to February. We also had to change the consultant who was engaged with the process of tariff determination as there was some conflict of interest. One discom also decided to amend its petition and hence all this led to delays,” said Sudhakar.

“We will try our best to enforce this by April itself in the future,” he added.

The tribunal also said in its order that the exercise of providing relief to the consumers by way of subsidy should be undertaken only after the tariff order has been announced and there should be no delay due to this.