Congress lawmakers slam Delhi power tariff hike

New Delhi: A day after power tariff was hiked by a whopping 26 percent hike, a number of Congress MLAs and MPs came out criticising the increase and asked Delhi government to provide subsidy to the poor consumers. East Delhi MP and Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s son Sandeep Dikshit said Delhi government should insulate the poor consumers by providing some subsidy.[caption id=“attachment_359581” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Facing flak. Image courtesy PIB”] [/caption] “I feel subsidy should be given to poor people… Concession should be given wherever it feels should be given,” Dikshit said. Slamming the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission for the “huge increase” in tariff, West Delhi MP Mahabal Mishra demanded intervention by Dikshit to ensure roll back of the hike. “The DERC hiked the tariff. Delhi government has nothing to do with it. The chief minister should intervene and ensure roll back of the tariff,” said Mishra. DPCC president JP Agarwal also criticised the hike. Senior MLA Naseeb Singh said the hike in tariff would further burden the common man and ways and means should be found to provide them relief. He also demanded scrutiny of DERC’s functioning saying why had the regulator proposed in 2010 a cut in tariff by 25 percent. In May last year, Delhi government had through a notification stalled DERC’s decision to announce the annual tariff for 2010-11. The DERC, which was making last-minute preparations to announce the new tariff, after receiving the government directive had indicated that it planned to cut down the tariff by 20 to 25 percent as discoms would have a surplus of around Rs 4,000 crore if the existing tariff was not changed. Although DERC was strongly arguing for a cut in tariff, the three-member regulator, following retirement and subsequent appointment of two new members, took a sympathetic approach to the demands of the discoms and hiked tariff by 22 percent in August last year followed by a hike of 5 percent and 2 percent in February and May this year. PTI