AAP's Manish Sisodia announced that people who backed Kejriwal's call to not pay electricity bills will get 50% cut in their bill. People who did not pay their electricity bills between October 2012 and April 2013 heading to a call given by Arvind Kejriwal will now have to pay only 50 per cent of the dues. They will also not have to pay any penalty.
The move is likely to cost the exchequer Rs 6 crore. The Aam Aadmi Party had promised to reduce power tariff in Delhi if voted to power.
AAP is engaged in a battle with discoms, but Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has assured Delhiites that they would not have to live without electricity. Kejriwal has however, asked people to be ready for "some difficulties" in case power distribution companies continued with their "blackmailing" tactics.
Alleging that there was "active collusion" between the companies and the previous Congress government, Kejrial has said that the power tariff would be decided on the basis of the CAG scrutiny of the three private discoms.
Last week, Delhi's power regulator DERC asked AAP government to examine ramifications of possible cancellation of licenses of BSES discoms, particularly about their huge financial liabilities.
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In a letter, the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission conveyed to the government that it examine various issues carefully including appointment of administrators in the discoms in the event of suspension of their licensees.
The DERC said it has increased the power tariff by nearly 70 per cent in the last four years to help the discoms finnancially.
