Powerless in Delhi: At home, on roads too

If you live in south, central or east Delhi, soaring mercury is not going to be the only worry for you this summer. With BSES, the
discom that serves these areas, failing to meet the rising power demand, people living in these parts of the capital seemingly have no option but to sweat it out through seven to eight hour long power outages everyday.

State power department sources told TOI the situation was not in their control and loadshedding had to be carried out to protect the national grid. "There is little loadshedding in north Delhi colonies as NDPL have arranged for sufficient power to meet summer demand. On the other hand, BSES has not applied for open access on time nor has been proactive in signing power exchange agreements. Most of BSES's tie ups have also not come through on time, and now its customers are suffering long power cuts,'' said a senior official.

Though, sources said, as the poll day approaches there could be some respite in short run. State power department officials claimed to have tied up for 579MW extra for the capital that would be made available from May 1. "The Central government has allocated 302MW power from Central sector generating stations. Besides, 277MW power has been arranged by discoms through banking arrangement with Maharashtra (63MW), Himachal Pradesh (100MW), Madhya Pradesh (45MW) and Rajasthan (69MW). From Friday, the situation will improve,'' said a spokesperson from Delhi Transco.

BSES, meanwhile, claimed it had made adequate tie-ups for the summer. It blamed "Grid situation'' for the power outages and said that it could not be hold responsible for failing to keep up with the rising power demand. "During the last few days, Delhiites have been facing some inconvenience on account of intermittent and unplanned outages. It is important to mention that these outages took place despite BSES making more than adequate arrangements to meet the power demand for the summer. Outages are taking place due to low frequency, massive overdrawal and technical faults with plants,'' said a BSES spokesperson.

Power demand has been rising sharply in Delhi and the peak load on Wednesday, 3681 MW, was the highest for this season. Experts expect demand to reach around 4,500 MW this summer. They said the only way Delhi could avoid outages was to achieve self-sufficiency in power generation. The state government has promised to get it by 2010 with three big power projects on their way in time for the Commonwealth Games.

In colonies fed by BSES Rajdhani and BSES Yamuna, the shortfall in demand was around 300MW. South Extension, Jungpura, Shivalik, Patparganj, Mayur Vihar, Vasundhara Enclave, RK Puram reported at least six to eight hour long outages. "When there was no power for over two hours, I called up discom helpline but was put on hold for over 20 minutes. It was ridiculous. We feel so helpless every summer and nothing ever changes,'' said an angry resident in Mayur Vihar.
source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Delhi/Powerless-in-Delhi-At-home-on-roads-too/articleshow/4469132.cms

' Discoms didn't submit genuine documents'

Delhi's power regulator has accused Reliance backed discoms, BSES Yamuna and Rajdhani, of "misrepresenting facts". One instance which has been challenged by BSES is that in 2004-05, BRPL and BYPL bought Rs 1233 crore worth of equipment from REL but DERC procured VAT receipts which showed REL's bill of materials for what it sold was much lower Rs 731 crore. DERC argued taht a 68% margin for REL amounted to ripping off DElhi's power consumers.

According to senior power officials, the trannsaction with REL could well be the most brazen atempt to fleece power consumers of Delhi. " A distribution company purchase its machinery from a sister company of the overall group to which they both belong at hugely inflated price with a profit margin of 68% and tried to pass on this entire cost to the consumers," said a senior official. The controversial issue was first discovered by DERC in 204 and the commission alleged taht the discom had committed a fraud and initiated an enquiry. The discom stuck to its stand that the transaction was done through competitive bidding and it had not favoured its sister company.

DERC has accuised the Reliance discoms of hidding facts and submitted some documents that were"not genuine to support this " manipulated transaction".The appellete's (BSES) atempt to prove that the work awarded to REL wsa for 'erection, testing and commissioning' is in vain and there is clear evidence to the contrary. It is therefore prayed that these documents should be rejected outright and should not be permited to be relied upon by the Appellent. It is also prayed taht court may consider initiating such action against the appelent for atemting to mislead the court ." reads the affidavit submitted by DERC. Delhi government has also expressed consern over the issue of 'mismanagedfunds' as it could affect consumer tariff. Discom BSES had insisted that the contract was given to REL through competitive bidding and EPC (ercetion, testing and commissioning )was also involved.DERC , however, didnot accept their claims and saidBSES could not provude any evidence to support their claim.

Source: timesgroup.com