Costly power may mean tariff hike, says BSES chief
28 Jun 2009,Richi Verma, TNN

Ten to twelve-hour long outages have left Delhiites fuming. Times City talks to BSES chairman Lalit Jalan about the current power crisis in Delhi
and what the discom is doing to tackle it.

Q. What is causing long power outages in the city? Did BSES fail to foresee the peak demand and did not prepare for it?

A. We planned in advance for the summer load in Delhi but a lot of things went against us. Our tie-up with Uttarankhand did not materialize and the state failed to give us 200MW power. Plants like Singrauli and DVC were not supplying their full quantum, which caused a lot of demand-supply gap.

Q. The frustration level in the city is rising and many BSES offices have been attacked. How do you plan to deal with the crisis?

A. The high temperature combined with long outages is making the summer unbearable for Delhiites. But we are doing our best to cope with the situation. The Centre has promised us 150MW from Monday and Uttarakhand has promised to supply another 200MW from July 1. We are also going to increase number of people who deal with local faults. I promise Delhiites that the situation will improve from Monday.

Q. There are allegations that BSES is reluctant to buy expensive power even in the face of a huge supply crisis. What do you say on the matter?

A. Last year we signed contracts for the power we thought we would need this summer, but certain things were not in our control. We have to be very careful about the rates at which we buy power as any cost inflation will have to be borne by Delhiites in form of a tariff hike. Last year in June, we supplied 73 million units (mu) power, while this year we have already supplied 86 mu. Even the government assumes a power demand increase of 6-8%, but this year it is almost 20%.

Q. The government has specified that discoms should not cut power for than one hour at a time but consumers in your distribution areas are claiming they are suffering eight to 10 hours long power cuts. Why?

A. It is a failure on the part of BSES if consumers suffer long hours of power cuts. We do not plan to cut power supply for more than an hour at a time and have put up a loadshedding schedule where no area is supposed to see more than three hours loadshedding in a day. But sometimes local faults add to our problems.

Q. The government claims BSES's infrastructure needs to be upgraded. What are your views about it?

A. This is not true. We have a fine network and this infrastructure distributes 87 mu in areas served by BSES.

Q. Another common complaint is about poor grievance redressal forum. Residents say getting through to BSES helpline numbers is very difficult and even when they get a response, they find call centre staff clueless about outages. Why?

A. Whenever there is an outage, every consumer from affected areas starts calling up the helpline numbers. Sometimes the call flow increases manifolds. We are now planning to increase the staff strength at our call centres.

Q. Seven years after privatization, Delhi seems to be unhappy with BSES. Where has the discom failed?

A. Before privatization, the city went without power for twelve hours. If you look around in the NCR, you will realize that people from Gurgaon or Noida still suffer long outages. The demand of gensets and inverters in Delhi has reduced considerably since privatization. Right now, our consumers are unhappy but we are trying to rectify the situation.