New Delhi: With the Delhi government facing threat over the power crisis in the state, Greenpeace India on Monday wrote a letter to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal urging him to ask the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) to roll-back tariff hike. In the letter, Greanpeace India also urged the government to accelerate the work on its solar vision to cushion Delhi's aam aadmi from increasing power costs.
"Doling out subsidies has already back-fired. Many areas in Delhi are as a result reporting long outages. Though the DERC, under pressure from power discoms, has hiked tariff rates even before the CAG's audit results are out, Delhi government's threat to cancel discoms' licenses is foolhardy. The Delhi Chief Minister must act smart and promptly announce policy measures to fulfil his manifesto target of meeting 20 per cent of Delhi's power needs by solar," Senior Campaigner Greenpeace India Abhishek Pratap said.
"Irrespective of what the CAG audit reveals, there will be no end to tariff hikes and power cuts unless generation and distribution of electricity is diversified and Delhi is made self-reliant via rooftop solar," he added.
Jolted by DERC's tariff hike of 6-8 per cent, Delhiites are now staring at a blackout as the central power supplier NTPC has relented to extend only a 10-day deadline to the defaulting discoms, BSES Rajdhani and BSES Yamuna, to pay their dues.
"As per the hiked tariff rate announced last week, an average household in Delhi will now pay an extra of 8 per cent on the overall bill. An average solar rooftop installation size of 2kW-3kW will generate 350-650 units a month, earning or saving the household Rs 3,000 approximately. Thus, it can lead to direct 30 per cent savings depending on the usage, besides insuring the household against power cuts and incessant threats posed by discoms," Pratap explained.
The Aam Aadmi Party in its manifesto for Delhi elections had promised incentives and subsidies to promote solar energy and set a target of meeting 20 per cent of Delhi's electricity needs via solar energy by 2022. Greenpeace had written a similar letter to the Delhi government on January 3 asking him to start work on his poll promise of solar energy but a response from the government is still awaited.
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