News Detail

The Kejriwal government raised the pitch in its battle with Delhi's power distribution companies by reaching out to companies to replace the incumbents but an appellate tribunal intervened and asked the regulator not to pass an order on termination without its consent. Official sources said the Delhi government had begun exploratory talks with several distribution companies from across the country, which can step in if licenses of BSES Yamuna and BSES Rajdhani of Anil Ambani's Reliance group are terminated. "Several power distribution companies have shown interest. However, most of these meetings are unstructured," a source in the Delhi government said.
Companies from Gujarat, Maharashtra and West Bengal have responded, the source said, without identifying them. Apart from the Tatas and Reliance Infrastructure of the Anil Ambani group that supply electricity in Delhi and Mumbai, companies involved in distribution in other regions include CESC in Kolkata, Torrent in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Surat, Agra and Bhiwandi, GTL in Maharashtra and DPSC in West Bengal and Bihar.

A director of one of these firms said the management was not aware of any such discussion but he could not rule out that the promoter may have been sounded. Another top executive at a discoms said the Kejriwal government would face huge regulatory and legal challenges in its bid to replace the licensees. In any case no private player would be willing to take over Delhi's distribution infrastructure in present circumstances particularly if BSES does not cooperate, the executive said. The Delhi go ..

Earlier, the Delhi government asked the regulator to terminate the licenses if the companies carry out their threat of largescale power cuts on the ground that they have no money to purchase electricity. The government has argued that the regulator would have fixed the tariff keeping the costs in mind, as required by the law, and in this circumstance it is unlawful to blackout parts of Delhi by saying the discom has no money.

In an on-going case between BSES and the state electricity regulator on claims of money to be recovered from customers the tribunal restrained the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) from taking any hasty step. BSES claims that it needs to recover over INR 15,000 crore from 32 lakh electricity consumers of Delhi - a move that the regulator has opposed. During the hearing of this case on Wednesday, BSES discoms advocates expressed their apprehensions before the tribunal that the DERC  may pass orders that may be prejudicial to the his clients. They requested tribunal members to prevent DERC from passing final order in the matter relating to suspension of licenses.
Tribunal Chairman Justice M Karpaga Vinayagam and member Rakesh Nath, in their order said, "Having regard to the urgency of the matter, we deem it appropriate to direct the Appellants (BSES discoms) to appear before the Delhi Commission on 6.2.2014 and make their submissions with regard to the letter of Government and Delhi Commission may continue to proceed with the matter by hearing the parties concerned, but the Commission is directed not to pass the final order in the above proceedings without leave of the Tribunal during the pendency of these IAs (Interim Applications)."
Source-On Request