It was about the SLD charges as approved & amended by DERC - please refer the guidelines for Publication in the Delhi Gazette Extraordinary Part - 111.
Point number 2 of the amendment says :
(2) If the computed revised load pursuant to Regulation 23A (1)exceeds the sanctioned load or contract demand as the case may be, the Licensee shall issue a separate notice to the consumer about the proposed increase in sanctioned load or contract demand. The notice shall contain the details of the exact readings in the consecutive billing cycle(s) taken into consideration along with details of enhanced security deposit and the differential Service Line cum Development (SLD) charges, if any, for such increase in sanctioned load or the contract demand, as the case may be, in accordance with Electricity Act, 2003 to be deposited by the consumer within 30 days from the date of receipt of notice. If the consumer fails to do so, the additional amount may be included in the next bill, indicating the reasons for such inclusion in the bill.
Whereas, Point number 6 of the amendment says :
(6) Service line cum development (SLD) charges shall not be refundable in case of load reduction or termination of agreement.
My very simple question was :
If in one season (year), a consumer gets automatic load reduction, he will not be paid back anything out of the Service line cum development charges (SLD), as these are not refundable in case of load reduction. But in the next season (year), if his load exceeds again, will he be charged again for the differential Service line cum development charges for the increase of load ? If yes, don't you think, the consumers will feel cheated ?
We got no reply to our ordinary mail, from DERC even after TWO MONTHS and the reply that we got from DERC against our RTI says : "only such information is required to be supplied under the act which already exists and is held by the public authority or held under the control of the public authority. The CPIO is not supposed to create informatiom, or to interpret information, or to solve the problems raised by the applicants, or to replies to hypothetical questions".
Amount or money involved is not my issue. I am just talking about the technicalities. While DERC has not yet replied ( even after two months ), to our ordinary mail, with the same question, do you think, they can skip the reply, on flimsy grounds, under the RTI ?
Best regards,
B S Vohra
