Act in three weeks or face action: UPERC to UPPCL

The commission observed that it was appalled by ‘callous’ and ‘reckless’ attitude of the respondents towards the issue

LUCKNOW: The UP Electricity Regulatory Commission (UPERC) has warned the power distribution companies (discoms) to get ready to face penal action if they did not make sufficient provisions to pay the interest on the security deposits to consumers in the state within three weeks.

Passing an order on an old writ petition on July 14, commission, and a quasi-judicial body regretted that the UP Power Corporation Ltd/discoms were yet to act upon the order passed by it in the same case on September 14, 2020. The petition has been pending since 2012.

“The commission gives strict directions to the Uppcl/discoms to comply with the direction given in the order within three weeks failing which proceedings under the section 142 shall be initiated and the commission would be constrained to take punitive actions against the respondents,” said the commission in its order by chairman Raj Pratap Singh, along with two members, Kaushal Kishore Sharma and Vinod Kumar Srivastava.

The commission observed that it was appalled by the ‘callous’ and ‘reckless’ attitude of the respondents towards the issue.

“The commission is surprised that every time the licencee (UPPCL) comes with lame excuses because of which the petition has been pending for a long time,” it observed before listing the case for next hearing on August 8.

According to Rama Shankar Awasthi, who is the petitioner in this case, the UPPPCL told the UPERC when it passed instruction last year that it was collecting data on security deposit and would start paying the interest to consumers soon. “But no progress was made in this regard,” he regretted.

As per the rules, the state discoms have to pay interest to the consumers at RBI bank rate or more on the consumer security deposit with the interest to be adjusted in consumers’ electricity bills on an annual basis. Consumers deposit security with discoms while applying for an electricity connection and the security amount varies depending on the nature and number of kws of the connection.

The security deposit is refundable to consumers when they opt for a permanent surrender of the power connection.

Awasthi said (discoms) did not even have the full data on the security deposit and did not regularly pay the interest to consumers though they included the ‘payment’ into their expenses to demand power tariff increase accordingly every year.

The UPERC’S last tariff order shows that the commission approved above Rs 200 crore as discoms’ expenses towards payment of interest to consumers on their security deposits while substantially increasing power tariffs in 2019. Consumers, however, are yet to get the interest due to them.

As per the same tariff order, the consumers’ consolidated security deposits the five discoms together had with them stood at Rs 3,164.03 crore in 2019.

The UPPCL pleaded it would have to pay Rs 208.06 crore to consumers and the allowed the same as expenses.