DERC for allowing discoms to keep greater non-tariff revenue

New Delhi, Aug 17 (PTI) The national capital’s powerregulatory body has proposed changes in its regulations toallow the discoms and DTL, which claim to be under financialstress, to retain a larger share of their non-tariff income. As per the draft regulations floated by Delhi ElectricityRegulatory Commission (DERC), the power utilities may beallowed to retain up to 60 per cent of the revenue earned fromother businesses such as consultancy. Currently, they are allowed to keep 20 per cent of suchearnings. Delhi Transco Ltd (DTL) was carved out of Delhi VidyutBoard in 2002 as a separate entity to function as transmissionutility. Discom BSES has repeatedly asked the DERC to liquidatetheir regulatory assets which they claim have touched aroundRs 16,000 crore, pending dues that can be recovered by way ofincreased tariffs. This move by DERC is seen as an attempt to encouragenon-tariff income. The city’s power tariff saw no revision last year and islikely to stay untouched this year as well. The AAP government has time and again pulled up thediscoms terming their performance as "atrocious". The proposed amendment in the DERC (Treatment of Incomefrom Other Business of Transmission Licensee and DistributionLicensee) Regulations, 2005, also states that the utilitieswill be able to retain 40 per cent of the revenue in casecapital assets (advertisements on electricity poles) are usedto earn that amount, as against 20 per cent allowed currently. Through a public notice, the DERC has requested allstakeholders to come up with comments or objections to thedraft amendment regulations by September 16. The non-tariff income of these utilities is around Rs 10crore per month as of now. PTI SBRRT