Coronavirus Impact on Power-Collections And More

Power Discom BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd (BRPL) has now suspended some of its services including meter reading and bill delivery until further directions from the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC).

However, the state Discom said that provisional bills will be raised as per the DERC guidelines.

The move came after the government has enforced lock-down in Delhi and has directed citizens to maintain social distancing amid coronavirus crisis.

BRPL said that “In support of the govt’s measures to contain the spread of the COVID 19, some of our services, have been curtailed.”

Although, the power Discom has ensured its customers by saying that it will provide quality and reliable power supply to them.

Recently, BRPL received ‘Diamond’ award for the ‘Most Reliable Supply of Electricity by Utility in India’ at the India Smart Grid Forum (ISGF) Smart Innovation awards.

Besides, BRPL has also directed its customers that they should avoid coming to BRPL offices and can avail several of its services via its digital platforms like BSES website, Mobile App, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, SMS and the Call Centre.

On the other side, electricity regulatory body in Delhi DERC has also cancelled a public hearing on petitions for True Up of expenses for FY 2018-19 and Aggregate Revenue Requirement (ARR) & Tariff for FY 2020-21 filed by generation companies, transmission licensee and distribution licensees scheduled on March 18, 2020, citing government notification on the outbreak of coronavirus disease. However, the date of the public hearing will be notified subsequently.

DERC has also extended the date for submission of comments and suggestions from stakeholders on Tariff petitions for True up of FY 2018-19 and ARR for FY 2020- 21 till the next date of the public hearing.

Another private sector Discom Tata Power-DDL has also recently ensured its consumers for uninterrupted power supply and directed them to stay at home and use maximum digital mediums for availing its services.

Though Covid 19 is in its initial phases in India, it has started showing its impact on the power and renewable energy industry too. The Covid 19 incidence has changed the way of working of the power industry and also changed the priority parameters for them.

However, it is too early to assess the complete impact of the virus on the production and revenues of the Indian power sector.

This is significant as India is the third-largest electricity producer across the globe, and secured 106th position in terms of per capita consumption in 2017, according to the latest key world energy statistics published by the IEA in 2019.

All this, at a time when discoms were finally paying up comes as a rude blow to the broad power sector. With states likely to go slow on collections, further disruption in discom payments are expected hurting the ailing sector at a crucial time.