Electricity in Delhi may become more expensive after the Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL) asked the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission(DERC) to issue an order within three weeks from April 20 to clear more than Rs 38,500 crore in regulatory assets (RA) that have been piling up since 2007.
APTEL refused DERC’s request to delay the process until July 2, calling the delay “unreasonable and unacceptable”. It said there is no legal issue in starting the recovery and warned that any further delay would only increase the burden on consumers, according to a report by The Indian Express.
Why is Delhi’s electricity bill likely to increase?
These pending dues, known as regulatory assets, have built up over the years because power tariffs were not increased even though costs like fuel and maintenance went up. These dues are usually recovered from consumers through an extra charge on electricity bills, the report said.
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“The Delhi government will take a final decision on how to settle the pending dues, either by increasing power tariffs or by any other means,” IE quoted an official, as saying.
Power minister says ‘public will not be affected’
Power Minister Ashish Sood, however, told IE that the government “will not let this impact the public”.
“The huge amount of regulatory assets have been collected due to the corruption of the previous AAP government and former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Our government will not let this impact the public. We are exploring legal routes and will get CAG to audit the discoms on why such huge pending dues have been collected,” IE quoted Sood, as saying.
Breaking down Rs 38,552 crore dues
According to DERC’s submission to APTEL in January, the total pending regulatory assets stand at Rs 38,552 crore. Of this, Rs 19,174 crore is linked to BSES Rajdhani Power Limited, Rs 12,333 crore to BSES Yamuna Power Limited, and Rs 7,046 crore to Tata Power Delhi Distribution Limited.
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Meanwhile, APTEL rejected DERC’s suggestion to get the discoms audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG). It said that while the Supreme Court of India had ordered a “strict and intensive audit” of discoms on August 6, 2025, it did not specify that the audit should be done by the CAG. The tribunal asked DERC to appoint an independent chartered accountant within a week and complete the audit, as per a CNBC TV18 report.
The matter became more urgent after a directive from the Supreme Court of India in October 2025, which said these dues must be cleared within a fixed timeline from April 1, 2024, to March 31, 2031. An earlier ruling in August 2025 had also said that delaying recovery for too long is not in the public interest, the report mentioned.
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