Haryana: Individual electricity connections will be installed in each flat in group housing societies soon.

Instead of a single point connection, state discoms are considering providing individual connections to each residence in housing clusters such as highrise societies, according to officials on April 17.

According to them, the move will ensure that each flat owner has a separate electricity connection. This could potentially lower household tariffs by bringing them under a uniform payment system of government charges, as well as improve transparency.

The Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) made a single point-connection mandatory for all housing societies in 2013. The discom provided a single connection for the entire society, which was then branched out into separate connections by the builder or RWA. The discom charges the society based on a collective interpretation of the single-point connection. The bill is divided internally by the society based on the amount of power used by each house.

This internal bill division also means that developers or RWAs determine the rates they charge residents for each unit of electricity consumed. Residents of Gurugram, for example, pay anywhere between Rs 7 and Rs 14 per unit of electricity consumed.

Once the houses have their own direct connections, they must pay tariffs to the discom directly based on separate metres for each house. It also means that they will pay the standardised rates of Rs 2 to 7 per unit, depending on the electricity slab they are in. (Users consuming 0-50 units must pay Rs 2/unit, while those consuming 501-800 units must pay Rs 7.1/unit.)

Discoms told TOI that several residents had complained about developers’ and RWAs’ inflated bills.

“At the request of RWAs, we can convert these single point connections directly under DHBVN into multiple connections to ensure better power supply.” “From the standpoint of the builder, the required infrastructure should be adequate,” PC Meena, managing director of Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam, said (DHBVN).

Its implementation will become mandatory following the release of an official statement.

Many residents of Gurugram believe the change will benefit them. “People will be overjoyed to become direct DHBVN customers,” said Dwarka Expressway Welfare Association President Yashish Yadav.

Gaurav Prakash, who lives in Sector 109, shared a similar viewpoint. “Once we become direct customers, we will be able to take advantage of the slab variation in electricity charges.” It will be more cost effective,” he said, adding that it will also increase transparency in the operation of RWAs.

Some associations, however, have stated that the RWAs will have no authority to take action against residents who do not pay their bills and maintenance on time.

“Under the single point-connection, RWAs could disconnect power supply supply if maintenance charges were not paid.” “Once residents become direct customers, RWAs will struggle to collect maintenance charges,” said Praveen Malik, spokesperson for the United Association of New Gurugram.