Great move! New power tariff policy will ban passing on of losses to consumer

Union Power Minister R K Singh said here on Saturday that the new power tariff policy, to be unveiled within a month, will prohibit power companies from passing on their losses to the consumer beyond a limit. The policy was currently under the Union government’s
consideration, Singh told reporters here.

“The policy is pro-consumer and transparent,” he said. “In the new policy, we are building the rights of the consumers. Right now there is no charter of rights of electricity consumers,” Singh said. “In the policy, we will give (prescribe) standard of service. For example, if I make a call, I will get the response in stipulated time. If distribution company violates that then a penalty would be imposed,” the minister said. It will also prohibit power distribution companies from passing on their losses to the consumers, he said.

“So if I (the company) am inefficient or not able to do the meter reading, billing or collection, I cannot pass on the burden to consumer beyond a certain level,” he explained. “Another thing we have already done is if I am a generating company and tied up with another company to supply power, then it is incumbent to supply power from the most efficient plant so that the power purchase cost is minimum,” he said.

“Only when first plant is fully online, generating full capacity, then the second plant will be run. The least efficient plant would not be run at all,” the minister added. Thanks to this change, consumers are now saving Rs three crore per day across the country, he said. The new policy will also ban unnecessary load shedding, he said. “If you do load shedding without any reason then you will have to pay penalty to the consumer,” he said.