Directions on ‘Zero Bills’ was for Discoms not Govt: ERC

Revanth Reddy on Sunday had questioned why the ERC had not raised an objection when the BRS government had implemented a free power scheme to farmers and why it was raising the issue now.

Hyderabad: A day after Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy took a serious note of the objections raised by the Telangana State Electricity Regulation Commission (TSERC) over the issuance of ‘zero bills’ under the ‘Gruha Jyothi’ scheme, the commission on Monday clarified that the directions was issued to the distribution licensees and not to the State government.

Revanth Reddy on Sunday had questioned why the ERC had not raised an objection when the BRS government had implemented a free power scheme to farmers and why it was raising the issue now.

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“A few agents of the old government are still playing mischief to foment trouble for the government. But all these elements will be weeded out,” he had said.

In a statement, the Commission stated that as per the direction of the State government, it had accepted the proposal to issue ‘zero bills’ under the Gruha Jyothi scheme. Since the scheme was designed to benefit the public at large, the Commission had accepted the directions issued by the State government with regard to issuance of zero bills, it stated.

“The Commission is functioning as per the provisions of the Electricity Act, 2003 and discharging its duties fearlessly, without any bias, with utmost integrity. honesty and devotion to its work,” the statement said.

Moreover, the State government in its letter addressed to the Commission itself said that it would release the requisite subsidy to the DISCOMs for the amount corresponding to zero bills generated for Gruha Jyothi beneficiaries, as stipulated under Section 65 of Electricity Act, 2003, the Commission pointed out.

With regard to Agricultural sector, the commission said the retail supply tariff for LT-V(A) Agriculture (DSM Measures mandatory) ‘Other than Corporate Farmers’ the tariff itself was ‘Zero’ (whereas for LT-Domestic consumers slab-wise tariff was determined) as there exists no energy meters for recording monthly-consumption of energy by individual agricultural consumers. ‘

Even in this case also, the distribution licensees were not issuing zero bills, but they were issuing electricity bills once in every six months to ‘LT-V(A) Other than Corporate Farmers’, towards customer charges, it explained.

The commission further said that in all other schemes of the State government by way of reimbursement viz., providing free power to SC/ST consumers (upto 101 units per month), and free electricity to hair cutting salons, laundry shops and dhobi ghats (upto 250 units per month), neither the State government had issued any directions to the Commission under Section 108 of the Act nor the distribution licensees issuing zero electricity bills, and were deducting the bill amount only to the tune of amount received by way of reimbursement of bill amounts from the government.

Moreover, the distribution licensees are levying ‘Delayed Payment Surcharge (DPS)’ towards belated payment of charges, the commission pointed out.

The commission further stated that if any party was aggrieved by the order of the Commission, they could appeal before appropriate authority.