Facing public ire for issuing inflated electricity bills recently, power distribution company (discom) BSES Rajdhani Private Limited (BRPL) faced more flak at a public hearing called by the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) on Friday. The hearing was in response to the power regulator’s showcause notice served to BRPL on August 7 regarding “unprecedented loadshedding” this June.

In the notice, DERC had asked the discom to explain the high outage in the peak-summer month and why its licence for power distribution should not be suspended.

BSES’s response, which sources from DERC called “disappointing”, has incensed the stakeholders — DERC and residents’ welfare associations (RWAs), besides the discoms.

I D Sharma, general secretary of Arjun Nagar RWA, who was present at the public hearing, said, “BSES is giving ridiculous excuses. First, they said DERC has no jurisdiction and should not have served showcause notice. Second, they refused to agree that the loadshedding was unprecedented and avoidable if they had made arrangements for additional power.

“We have appealed to DERC to take stringent action against them.”

A Delhi government official said BSES did not provide any “real reasons”. “Instead, they said the outage in June was not unprecedented since similar loadshedding patterns were observed in 1992, 1996 and other years — before power distribution was privatised,” the official said. “The comparison with Delhi Vidyut Board enraged members of the public — they said we might not have privatised the sector in that case.”

The DERC, likely to reach a verdict over the fortnight, has also ordered a statutory investigation, under Section 128 of Electricity Act, into the loadshedding.