Monday, May 6, 2013

Proposed power tariff hike: YC gheraoes CSERC

Raipur, May 06, 2013


The Youth Congress (YC) gheraoed Chhattisgarh state electricity regulatory commission (CSERC) in protest against power tariff hike proposed by power companies on Monday. The YC’s state vice president Deepak Mishra alleged that the power companies wanted to compensate their financial loss by hiking power tariff.

“The power companies wasted Rs 460 crore on pretext of establishment cost without framing any policy and eventually incurred huge loss.  Now they aim to compensate the loss by putting additional financial burden on power consumers,” he said.

He pointed that while public sector undertakings and private players were generating power at the rate of Rs 1.25 per unit, the state power companies were taking power generation cost from consumers at the rate of Rs 3.05 per unit.

He alleged that the power companies were buying electricity at higher rate from the private players to benefit the latter and then charging more tariff to consumers.

He said the state consumers were also paying high transmission cost. “The transmission cost in Chhattisgarh is 27 paise per unit while in other states it is 12-13 paise per unit,” he added.

Similarly, he said, in Chhattisgarh the line loss is 30% while in other states it is 15-20%. “The power companies recover additional line loss charges from consumers,” he said.

Pointing towards CAG report that said power companies recovered Rs 252 crore from consumers by imposing double tax, Mishra said the additional amount taken from the people should be returned.

He further objected over proposal of power tariff hike being made in English language. “According to Supreme Court directives, such proposals should be in common language, i.e. Hindi and if sought the copy of the proposal should be given to people gratis,” he said.

“Why will people shell out extra bucks for incapability of power companies? The proposal of the power companies is not justified and hence power tariff should not be hiked,” he said.

He warned that the YC would strongly protest CSERC’s hearings for proposed power tariff hike in coming days.

  


 

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