Delhi government is going to make a major change in the free electricity scheme, which will have a direct impact on those consumers whose electricity consumption in their homes is negligible or absolutely zero. If any of your houses have been closed for a long time and electricity is not being used there, then now your subsidy can be stopped. After this change, a fixed charge of up to Rs 200 may be imposed on the electricity bills of about 44.5 lakh houses.
Fixed charges hit closed houses
The government is now eyeing ‘dormant’ i.e. inactive electricity consumers. These are those people who have got the meter installed in their name, but the monthly electricity consumption of their house is negligible. Till now the rule was that if electricity was spent up to 200 units, the bill would be completely zero. In this zero bill, fixed charges were also waived, which the government used to pay directly to the power companies on its own behalf. But under the new plan, if the house is closed and the meter reading is zero, the government will stop that subsidy.
What are ‘dormant’ consumers?
An in-depth analysis of electricity bill data by the department revealed that for three to four months of the year, especially during the winter season, electricity is not used at all on thousands of connections. Such consumers often stay out of Delhi most of the time. Apart from this, a surprising thing also came to light that in the race to avail maximum benefit of subsidy, many people have taken different electricity connections in the same house. The result of this is that between 2020 and 2025, the number of electricity consumers in the capital increased by more than 12 lakhs, whereas the number of water consumers did not increase in that proportion during this period.
Financial burden of subsidy crossed Rs 4000 crore
The biggest reason behind this strict step of the government is the continuously increasing expenditure on electricity subsidy. When the scheme was launched in the financial year 2015-16, the subsidy burden on the government exchequer was Rs 1,442.76 crore. This figure has increased tremendously in the last decade. It was Rs 3,250 crore in the year 2021-22, which has now reached Rs 4,000 crore for 2025-26. At present, there are a total of more than 62 lakh electricity consumers in Delhi, out of which, according to the data of December 2025, 58.72 lakh people availed the subsidy.
Minimum power consumption limit will be fixed
According to the current rules, there is no bill for using up to 200 units of electricity in Delhi. The government gives a rebate of 50 percent (up to a maximum of Rs 800) on consumption between 201 to 400 units, whereas if the consumption exceeds 401 units, the subsidy is completely removed. Officials say that now a ‘minimum electricity unit expenditure’ limit will be fixed to identify inactive consumers. If the total consumption of the month is less than that fixed limit, then the consumer will be taken out of the scope of subsidy.