New charges in favour of power cos, says Gupta; govt denies claim

NEW DELHI: Leader of the Opposition in the Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta on Friday alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party government favoured private distribution companies by increasing fixed charges in power bills by 10 times in a span of six months.

He also alleged that the Delhi government went into a huddle after the latest tariff order and changed the subsidy plan from 50% on energy charges up to 400 units.

Denying the charge, a Delhi government spokesperson said, “All government papers, including the Cabinet notes, related to the subsidy plan stated the discount in rupees and not in percentage.”

Secretary (power) Varsha Joshi said, “For 0-200 units, the subsidised rate on energy charge was Rs 2 on Rs 4 and for 201-400 units it was Rs 2.975 on Rs 5.95. The same subsidy will continue on the new tariffs too and there will be no change.”

Gupta said that in the last six months, fixed charges in electricity bills were raised twice. Till August 2017, there were only three categories for the purpose of fixed charges. The fixed charges in the first category up to 2kw were only ₹40; in the second category from 2kw to 5kw, it was ₹100 and ₹25 per kw per month for the third category with sanctioned load beyond 5kw,” he said.

In a fresh tariff order issued in September last year, the number of categories for fixed charges was raised from three to five.