New Gurgaon protests increase in power bills

Residents of New Gurgaon staged an hour-long protest on Thursday outside the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran (DHBVN) office over a nearly 22% hike in power bills.

Residents of New Gurgaon staged an hour-long protest on Thursday outside the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran (DHBVN) office over a nearly 22% hike in power bills.

HT Image

Members of the Gurgaon Citizens’ Council and 12 residents’ welfare associations met DHBVN superintending engineer Sanjeev Chopra and demanded a rollback of the present tariff system and the fuel charge adjustment, which has been charged since the beginning of the current financial year.

“The discom has charged us on a telescopic basis. We are paying for electricity at a flat rate instead of slabs that were effective till April. As a result, there has been a 20-22% hike in bills for top-end consumers with a monthly consumption of more than 800 units. In addition to this, we also pay the unreasonable fuel surcharge adjustment cost that is not charged by neighbouring states such as Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Punjab,” said GCC president RS Rathee.

Rathee said that if the ‘flat’ tariff plan is not rolled back, GCC members will only pay bills based on rates stated by the discom before April. “We will wait for three weeks for a response and later approach the HERC. We will pay according to our usage if the tariffs are not revised,” he said.

Explaining the process in which the FSA is charged or revised, Singh said, “The FSA is charged for power that has been already provided. The power supply has improved over the past years and continued supply can be ensured only if purchased power is paid for by consumers,” he said.