PANAJI
The Goa Electricity Department (GED) has told the Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC) that while uninterrupted power supply is an “ideal” objective, draft regulations mandating 24x7 electricity and compensation for breakdowns must account for ground realities and technical peculiarities in Goa.
In its written submission, GED said the rules should be linked to “technical constraints, force majeure conditions, and scheduled maintenance."
The department pointed to aging grid infrastructure in the State, heavy monsoons, salinity, hilly terrain, forests, and water bodies as recurring causes of transmission and distribution faults.
The JERC’s draft regulations, notified last month, propose to make continuous supply mandatory and introduce penalties for non-compliance. They also require annual energy audits, a public Customer Charter, and strict adherence to consumer rights under the Electricity (Rights of Consumers) Rules, 2020.
The consultation period for suggestions and objections from stakeholders closed last week and GED sources said the department's views were officially submitted to the Commission in time.
The Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) is one stakeholder from the consumer side which submitted its take to the commission in which it welcomed the move but warned that the wide exclusions and long power restoration timelines in case of breakdowns could render the objective of compensation ineffective.
“Exclusions must be narrowed to truly unavoidable events and restoration limits cut to 6-8 hours, so compensation kicks in faster,” the GCCI had submitted while suggesting that payouts should be recovered from officials responsible for the lapses rather than future tariff hikes.
In the JERC's draft regulation, restoration timelines stretch to 24 hours in urban areas.
Such mandatory 24-hour supply frameworks are already in force in cities like Delhi and Mumbai with stricter norms. In Delhi, for instance, the discoms must restore supply within one hour or pay automatic compensation starting at Rs 50 per hour and rising to Rs 100 for subsequent hours.
In Mumbai, the framework mandates restoration within 2-6 hours depending on outage scale and compensation linked to sanctioned load.
The rules proposed for Goa in the JERC's draft regulation retain broad exclusions and a generous timeline of 24 hours for restoration of power.
The Commission is expected to review submissions before finalizing the regulations later this year and the outcome could determine whether compensation for outages becomes a real safeguard or remains symbolic.
Whether Goa’s consumers will see real relief now hinges on how JERC balances the goal with the ground realities pin-pointed by the GED in its final regulations.
