Desperate Sheila Dikshit warns private discoms for poor service
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
New Delhi

A report has earlier revealed inflation of bills by 100 to 200 per cent for the consumers of BRPL and BYPL.
Congress Government headed by Sheila Dikshit hoped that privatisation of power utility in Delhi will solve electricity realted issues. But recent news regarding arbitrary load shedding, poor service, inflated bills caused public to turn against the Government. Hence, Chief Minister of Delhi was compelled to warn private discoms viz. BRPL, NDPL and BYPL against their poor performance and said her government would not hesitate in taking any stern action if they do not satisfy customers with their service.

The Chief Minister spoke her mind during a meeting with the heads of Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission, the Public Grievances Committee and the CEOs from all the three discoms. She asked particularly BSES, the Reliance-backed company, to extend the date for August's bills till the end of September and not to fine consumers who did not pay their bills for the August on the assumption that their bills were exaggerated.

Dixit cited the dissatisfaction of consumers, in particular with Reliance's BSES, and said that the bulk of the complaints were against it. A report has earlier revealed inflation of bills by 100 to 200 per cent for the consumers of BRPL and BYPL.

Due to inflated bills, many residents of localities such as CR Park, Greater Kailash, Jangpura and Vikaspuri had decided not to pay up till an inquiry was conducted. The Chief Minister said in a statement, "The performance of discoms is not up to the mark and the consumers are not in particular satisfied with the BSES."

Berjinder Singh, chief of Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission, assured that the matter would be looked into and the report regarding that would be provided in 15 days. All data relating power plus discoms' the billing software would also be checked within 30 days.

The Chief Minister took the concerned step after complaints from RWAs that discoms charged their customers 2 to 3 times higher as compared to last year without any significant change in consumption of power.