People will be entitled to compensation if they face prolonged power cuts in Chhattisgarh, the state electricity regulator said on Friday.
The Chhattisgarh State Electricity Regulatory Commission (CSERC) has adopted new rules in its bid to ensure the interruption-free supply of electricity to consumers and, for the first time, included the provision of reimbursement for extended outages, it said in a statement.
Chhattisgarh has become the first state to implement a policy of ‘compensation for power cuts,’ the official said.
The Electricity Act of 2003 set a target for ensuring the supply of quality and uninterrupted power to consumers.
“Accordingly, the CSERC was given the responsibility to fix quality parameters of power supply,” said SP Shukla, Secretary of CSERC, in the release.
In this line, the CSERC enacted the same rules in 2006, but neither the provision of standard parameters for the supply of uninterrupted power to consumers nor the provision of compensation to consumers for non-compliance with the rules, “he said.
Keeping this in mind, the CSERC notified CSERC (Standards of Excellence in the Distribution of Electricity) Regulation 2020 in May that it had set a maximum time limit for monthly outages as well as for each interruption of electricity supply by power firms, Shukla said.
The provision of monetary compensation to consumers in the event that power distribution companies violate these parameters has also been made, stated the statement.
As per the parameters, in a city with a population of 10 lakhs or more, if the supply of electricity remains disrupted for a total of 10 hours or more during the month from April to June, the distribution company will have to pay compensation to the consumer.
For other urban and rural areas, the time limit has been set at 20 hours or more per month during this period, he said.
Similarly, from July to March, if the power outage exceeds 6 hours or more per month in a town with a population of 10 or more lakhs, 15 hours for other urban areas and 20 hours for rural areas, consumers will be entitled to compensation from the distribution company, he said.
For the restoration of power supply, a maximum time-limit of four hours has been set for urban areas, while a maximum time-limit of 24 hours is set for rural areas after power cuts each time, Shukla said.
