Supreme Court notice to BSES on paying current dues of power generation firms

5 Dariya News

New Delhi 14-Dec-2015

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to power discoms BESES Rajdhani and Yamuna on a plea by elhi government's power generation companies Indraprastha Power Generation Company Ltd, Pragati Power Corporation Ltd and Delhi Transco Ltd. seeking direction for payment of their current dues.The power generation companies in their application have sought direction to the discoms to make the payment of current outstanding dues of Rs.823.35 crores and keep paying their current dues on a monthly basis.A bench of Justice J. Chelameswar and Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre issued the notice after the senior counsel Rajeev Dhavan appearing for power generation companies addressed the court on the issue.

However, the discoms, in a statement, have said that the Delhi Electricity Regulation Commission has admitted in its affidavit in the Supreme Court that around Rs.10,000 crore is owed to BSES discoms. In addition, DERC has also admitted in Supreme Court that Rs.4,500 crore would be due to BSES discoms on account of APTEL judgements. "With the true-up for Financial Year 2014 and Financial Year 2015, total money owed to BSES discoms is in around Rs. 20,000 crore. As these amounts are cleared, dues to power utilities will be paid appropriately."Power sector experts hold that the cost of buying power by the discoms has increased by around 300 percent, and around 85 percent of total discom cost is power purchase cost, over which is uncontrollable by discoms.