New Gurgaon residents to protest hiked power rates

With the electricity bills of some households shooting up to Rs. 1 lakh, residents of New Gurgaon are set to demonstrate against the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam on September 5 demanding a rollback of the additional fuel surcharge adjustment, which they claim has inflated their bills.

With the electricity bills of some households shooting up to Rs. 1 lakh, residents of New Gurgaon are set to demonstrate against the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam on September 5 demanding a rollback of the additional fuel surcharge adjustment, which they claim has inflated their bills.

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“We have sent circulars to the residents’ welfare associations and will hold the agitation on Sept 5 outside the DHBVN office in Sector 14 and demand a rollback of the fuel surcharge adjustment (FSA), which has hiked our power bills by 30 per cent,” said RS Rathee, president of Gurgaon Citizens’ Council, which is leading the movement.

Residents across Gurgaon are up against the state power discom after it levied an FSA of 34 paisa every month in the April-July period. “DHBVN has increased the charges without informing us. We approached it and were told that it’s a quarterly hike but we have received two such bills successively and the charges have increased each month,” said Suresh Kumar, a resident of New Gurgaon.

Retired persons are the worst-affected as their earnings are less than the electricity charges they are being forced to pay. “How can retired persons who have an income of Rs 11,000 pay over Rs 20,000 for electricity? They don’t even consume that much power,” said a member of Joint Action Forum of Residents’ Associations.

DHBVN officials, however, said that the FSA was charged as per norms. “The hike in FSA is decided by the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission and we only implement it. It was levied for a three-month period but we don’t know if the future bills will reflect the hiked rates. Besides, the city has surplus electricity and there are no long power cuts,” said a senior engineer with DHBVN.