Delhi power rates hiked by 5 paise per unit

NEW DELHI: A day after Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit announced that there would be no power tariff hike, the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) increased electricity rates by five paise per unit.

"The commission in the current tariff order has increased the tariff by five paise per unit for all the consumers including domestic, agriculture and industrials. The rates which will come into force from March 1, this year will be applicable up to March 31 2009," a senior DERC official said.

The decision in this regard was announced on Saturday by the DERC. "There is, however, no increase in the fixed changes in any category," he said.

Following the implementation of the Multi Year Tariff regime, which started from April 2007, the retail tariff would be decided every year taking into account the adjustment on account of allowed variations in the uncontrollable parameters.

"The MYT regulations aim at creating a platform to reward performance, promote efficiency, provide regulatory certainity to the investors and take steps for promoting transparency, consistency and predicitability for both investors as well as the consumers," he said.

The DERC has also set forth different Aggregrate Technical and Commercial (AT&T) loss reduction targets for private power firms, BYPL, BRPL and NDPL.

While BYPL has to meet a target of 22 per cent, a target of 17 per cent has been set for NDPL and BYPL by the end of the control period ending March 2011.