The energy shortage in the country has come down from 4.2 percent in 2014 to around 0.2 percent in FY 2022, the Union minister for power said.
The government will soon come out with public notices informing people about their right to claim compensation from distribution companies (discoms) for gratuitous power cuts, Union Minister for Power and Renewable Energy RK Singh told reporters in New Delhi on June 22.
“If there is load shedding, we are asking questions. There were some cities in Uttar Pradesh where we found there were unreasonable load shedding happening, we pulled them up. We have made 24×7 electricity a right. We have introduced the Electricity (Right of Consumers) Rules 2020, which is a law. If any discom does any gratuitous load-shedding, then they have to pay compensation to the consumers,” Singh said.
He further said that to make the public aware of this right to claim compensation, the Ministry of Power is soon going to come out with public notices about the same. “Mechanisms have been set up in every division and sub-division where consumers can register such a complaint. We notified these rules almost a year back, but we found that consumers are hardly claiming this. So, in 4-5 days we are going to start the series of notices to inform the public about this right,” the minister said.
The Electricity (Right of Consumers) Rules 2020 lay down the time limits and standards for the various services to be provided by the discoms across the country, which are monopolies, to provide services in accordance with standards or pay compensation to their consumers. These rules cover the aspects of obligations of discoms towards the consumers, the time limits for grant of new connections, attending faults and defective meters, billing, standards of performance, compensation mechanism, grievance redressal mechanism as well as right of consumers for installing renewable energy generation and use or sell the same as prosumer.
The minister said India has become a power surplus nation and net exporter of electricity in the last nine years. The energy shortage in the country has come down from 4.2 percent in 2014 to around 0.2 percent now, he said, adding that 2.86 crore households have been connected with electricity in record 19 months.
Talking about the power ministry’s achievements in the past nine years, power secretary Alok Kumar said the aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses of discoms have declined from 22 per cent in FY 2021 to 16.44 per cent in FY 2022.
“The gap between the average cost of supply (ACS) and average realisable revenue (ARR) declined from Rs. 0.69/kWh (kilowatt hour) in FY2021 to Rs 0.15/kWh in FY2022. Against legacy dues of Rs 1,39,747 crores as on June 3, 2022, 13 states/ UTs have paid instalments of Rs 64,196 crores,” the minister said.
Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, BS Bhalla, said about USD 78 billion in investment has been received in the sector since 2014 (including USD 10.3 billion in FDI). Besides, the government also took various measures to promote domestic manufacturing of cells and modules, usage of green energy and development of RE projects.
“The installed renewable energy capacity (including large hydro) has increased from 76.37 GW in March 2014 to 173.61 GW in May 2023, reflecting an increase of around 2.27 times. RE generation (including large Hydro) has increased from 190.88 billion units (BU) in 2014 -15 to 365.60 BU in 2022-23 (up to March, 2023),” Bhalla said.
Source: PTI
