Greenpeace India on Tuesday asked Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to roll back the hike in power tariff ordered by the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Authority (DERC) and accelerate work on the solar vision to cushion Delhi’s citizens from increasing power costs. “Doling out subsidies has already back-fired. Many areas in the Capital are as a result reporting long outages. Though the DERC, under pressure from power discoms, has hiked tariff rates even before the CAG’s audit results are out, the Delhi Government’s threat to cancel discoms’ licenses is fool hardy. Chief Minister must act promptly and announce policy measures to fulfil his manifesto target of meeting 20 per cent of Delhi’s power needs by solar,” Abhishek Pratap, senior campaigner, Greenpeace India, said in a letter to the Chief Minister on Monday. Mr. Pratap, in his letter said, irrespective of what the CAG audit reveals, there will be no end to tariff hikes and power cuts unless generation and distribution of electricity is diversified and Delhi is made self-reliant via rooftop solar. Jolted by the DERC’s tariff hike of 6-8 per cent, Delhiites are now staring at a blackout as the central power supplier NTPC has relented to extend only a 10-day deadline to the defaulting discoms, BSES Rajdhani and BSES Yamuna, to pay their dues. Household “As per the hiked tariff rate announced last week, an average household in Delhi will now pay an extra of 8 pr cent on the overall bill. An average solar rooftop installation size of 2KW-3KW will generate 350-650 units a month, earning or saving the household about Rs.3,000. Thus, it can lead to direct 30 per cent savings depending on the usage, besides insuring the household against power cuts and incessant threats posed by discoms,’’ he explained. The Aam Aadmi Party in its manifesto for Delhi elections had promised incentives and subsidies to promote solar energy; and set a target of meeting 20 per cent of Delhi’s electricity needs via solar energy by 2022.