All citizens of the national Capital, Delhi can find a dip in their electricity bills from this 1st April 1 because the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) on the last Wednesday updated and make modernized its tariff order for 2018-19 with three major changes, the Electricity Board went through.
The Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) making it more consumption-driven for the public of the city also.
But those with low consumption of the electricity are actually unlikely to see any changes in their bills also somehow.
The power regulator can be amplified and witness increasing fixed charges which can apply to every consumer, but bring it down also down the energy cost or charge anyhow.
This one is also being disclosed about the surcharge from 3.7% to 3.8%, which goes on the way to paying pension to former employees in order to utilities the power properly.
The reduction in energy charge will be likely to be reducing the consumer’s power bill, especially during the period of summer when the electricity demand is turned to be higher.
Satyendra Jain, The Delhi power minister also promised that no consumer will have to pay extra money for the power or their increasing electricity.
“The new tariff will reduce electricity bills of every consumer by 7% to 8% on an average,” he said.
Fixed charge, a part of the bill, is said to be the cost of on which a consumer has to pay even if the person does not use any unit of power. DERC increased this appreciably in the range of ₹105 to ₹150.
Like, for example, those who used to pay only ₹20 a month for one kilowatt (kW) of power for an authorized load of up to 2kW is all set to pay ₹125.
Those with a load between 2kW and 5kW are all set to pay Rs 140, as an alternative to the existing charge of Rs 35. Between 5kW and 15kW, the charge can be around Rs 175. As of now, people pay Rs 45 in this category somehow.
The city Delhi has over 5.8 million power consumers, of which 4.7 million are home users. About 2.7 million domestic consumers have an authorized and certified load of up to 2kW.
The fixed charge is improbable and doubtful to affect most consumers because the power regulator did a downward amendment of the energy charges ranging from .8 paise to Re 1.45 a unit.
This Energy charge is the changeable part of an electricity bill which is the main depends on the number of units consumed also.
DERC member BP Singh told about the revised order can also help liquidate which is the vital part of this electric issue and around Rs, 7,833 crore proceeds gap of power discoms for it.
At a distance from the 3.8% surcharge, DERC levies another 8% surcharge on every bill which can also deal with and cover the revenue gap anyway.
In its preceding tariff order declared in August 2017, the DERC had announced this as the only change of introducing the 3.7% surcharge.
“The new order has been drafted in a way that consumers will see their bills go down during the summer. But during winters, when consumption is low, it could pinch a bit,” Singh told.
Also, consumers can have the Delhi government subsidy which is all set to pay a bit more, he added further.
The government provides a subsidy of Rs 2 and Rs 2.97 to those people who consume 0-200 units and 201-400 units in that order.
Singh elaborate that if someone with an authorized load of 2kW uses 100 units post the tariff hike, her subsidized bill can go up from about Rs 313 to around Rs 431 a month.
Still, people can gain.
“If a consumer has a sanctioned load of 2kW and is consuming 400 units, he will gain the most out of all slabs with a saving of over 24% a month, including the subsidy and surcharges. From Rs 1,380, the bill will go down to Rs 1,043 a month,” said a Delhi government official, who doesn’t wish his name to be announced.
In the non-subsidy group, if someone uses 525 units and has a sanctioned load of 5kW then he needs to be paying Rs 3,484 a month, in its place of Rs 3,583 under the existing tariff, Singh added further.
On being elaborating the main cause for increasing fixed costs, he stated that this was done to plug power theft that puts an extra burden of 10% on tariff orders at present time.
As per him, the move will help keep bulk consumers together within the city’s distribution network. “Because until now we had such low fixed costs, bulk consumers like the railways moved out. Distribution companies, in such cases, have to pay fixed costs to generation and transmission companies, which in turn reflect in consumer tariffs. This will reduce now,” he stated.
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