Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation which supplies electricity to Mysore and its surroundings has now filed an application before Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission for yet another increase in tariff. The public can submit their objections to the rate hike and the last date for submitting objections is September 14.
MGP has filed its objections and they include the following:
1. The Tariff Filing must be rejected because various laws, rules and regulations have been contravened.
a. The financial statements which includes balance sheet, the schedules and comments/observation are not audited as required by KERC (Tariff) Regulations 2000 Annexe II.
b. According to Sec. 61(g) of the Electricity Act, 2003 and Sec. 27(2)(c) of the Karnataka Electricity Reforms Act, 1999, the tariff should progressively reflect the cost of supply of electricity. Even though KERC has given CESC opportunities year after year, CESC has not yet scientifically determined the cost of supplying power to various categories of consumers and still resorts to average cost of supply. This should not be accepted. There is no connection between the values of fixed charges and energy charges proposed by CESC for various categories of consumers and the actual cost of supplying electricity. Further, for the last several years, all the electricity supply companies in Karnataka have been asking for the same tariff rates for various categories of customers and they have done it again this year. It is not possible that the cost of supplying power to various categories of consumers to be identical for all electricity supply companies; thus it is clear that these numbers are false. This violation of the letter and spirit of the Electricity Act and the Karnataka Electricity Reforms Act should not be tolerated.
c. Sec. 55(1) of the IE Act mandates that power should be supplied to only those installations which have accurate metering. CESC has not ensured accurate metering for all installations.
d. Sections 27(1)(d), (e) and (f) of the Karnataka Electricity Reforms Act stipulate that the Commission shall be guided by the factors like 'economical use of the resources', 'optimum investments', 'the interests of the consumers' and 'commercial principles'. CESC has not complied fully with these requirements.
2. In view of the extremely poor quality of power supplied over the last year and the unacceptably long unannounced power cuts inflicted by CESC on its customers, the Commission should use the powers given by Sec. 57 of the Electricity Act, set stringent standards of power quality, and penalize CESC heavily for violations of these standards.
C.V.Nagaraj, member, Mysore Grahakara Parishat
C.V.Nagaraj, member, Mysore Grahakara Parishat