JOIN USKERC to decide on MESCOM's tariff hike before Nov 20
Speaking to reporters after holding public hearing at the Deputy Commissioner’s Office here on Friday, Pandey said that the Commission had received 63,251 objections from consumers with regard to MESCOM’s tariff hike proposal. To a query on the allegations of misuse of electricity by MESCOM, he said “let us find out what the truth. Then only I can speak about.”
‘Hearing is irrelevant’
Arguing for a consumer Subramanya Bhat, Energy Legal Advisor Shridhar Prabhu said that the public hearing organised by the KERC is irrelevant. “As per rules, either the Managing Director or the Board of Directors of a company should submit the tariff hike proposal to the KERC.
However, MESCOM had submitted the tariff hike proposal to KERC through an Executive Engineer (Electrical Regulatory Affairs),” he said.
Company also should have issued a power of attorney before submitting a tariff hike proposal, he said adding that KERC need not convene public hearing as the proposal has no validity.
KERC’s directive of 2008 to implement multi-year tariff in ESCOMS was upheld by the Appellate Tribunal on Electricity (ATE) and a final directive in this regard was issued on October 9. Hence, holding a public meeting on tariff hike is against rules, he argued.
Further, he pointed out that MESCOM had sold 38,000 million units of power to BSES Rajdhani, a Delhi based power supply company, in 2008 even when the state was reeling under power shortage crisis. MESCOM should have secured 50 per cent bank guarantee for the transaction. However, rules were not adhered in the transaction, he charged.
Prabhu said that MESCOM’s statistics regarding meter installation for pumpsets is faulty. According to an RTI reply, MESCOM had installed meters for 1,49,326 pumpsets out of 1,86,439 (80%) by September 2009. However, the MESCOM claims in its report that 92 per cent of pumpsets were connected to meters, he added.
He said that MESCOM spends Rs 20.70 lakh to sell one million units of power. This is too high when compared to BESCOM, where the cost for the same is only Rs 6.93 lakh. While BESCOM’s administrative and other expense is only 4.06 paise per unit, MESCOM spends 9.02 paise per unit, he added.