Claiming that poor maintenance of electricity plants by discoms was responsible for power cuts, Delhi Power Minister Satyendra Jain on Saturday announced that consumers would be compensated for outages of more than two hours.Jain said the government has asked DERC (Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission) to penalise the discoms for power cuts beyond two hours."The compensation amount will be reflected in the consumers' electricity bills. We will soon issue a notification in this regard, Jain told reporters here.He said there was no power shortage in Delhi and that power cuts were happening due to poor maintenance of plants by the discoms."Even if the power demand goes up to 7,000 megawatt, we have made arrangements. The power cuts are happening because of local faults such as poor maintenance of power supply system.""When power distribution was privatised, it was claimed that the electricity supply system will improve and bring in more money, which is clearly not happening," the minister said.
Jain also flayed private discoms for allegedly not investing enough money in upgrading their supply infrastructure."The DERC informed us that the discoms invest thousands of crores in improving their supply system. However, we don't see any improvement because complaints are coming in large numbers. Where is all the money going?" he asked.Delhi has been reeling under a power crisis for the past few days.On Friday, Delhi saw the peak power demand at 6,188 MW, the highest since the privatisation of power distribution in Delhi in 2002. The peak power demand had touched 5,846-MW in June last year.